Scions League
by Dantegrey
Summary: Series of one-shots about possible Norse Scions appearing in the DC universe and, essentially, wrecking havoc. From children of Odin to the Firstborn of Surtur, they bring pure power to the League, something that breaks more than one Leaguer way of thinking. May the Norns have mercy on the poor bastards.
1. Wild Hunt

Themyscira

Gates of Tartarus

Diana didn't want any of this madness.

Utter madness was the only thing that surrounded her, as he attended the prone form of her mother Hippolyta, both trying to recover from the onslaught of the dark god Hades.

That fool, Felix Faust, has cut a deal with the Lord of Tartarus, in order to gain the supreme knowledge. In the end, the sorcerer has been tricked and offered the supreme knowledge that the mortal will always suffer and perish, no matter how high they raise during their short lives.

That has only been the beginning of the battle between the Justice League and the mad god, a battle that was still echoing through the forgotten caves that contained the Tartarus Gate, hidden under the sacred grounds of Themyscira.

Diana blamed herself for this, she knew that all of this was her fault, she should have confronted Faust, she should have broken the neck of the damned magician and then ask Zattana or Doctor Fate about how to free her sisters from the petrifying spell Faust put them in. Faust was not the best sorcerer of the world, just a crazy man who had dabbled into secrets that should be buried and forgotten, she knew better magicians than him.

But her pride got the best of her and she accepted the deal of Faust and went into a ridiculous goose chase all around the world, for the relics that form the Key of the gates; pieces that were scattered all over the world, up to a point on were she even drag her friends; her dearest friends of the JLA; with her in that mad quest, only to be outwitted by Faust at the end of the quest, when he stole the key from them and made a run for the Gates, opening the Pit of the Forgotten souls.

Not precisely her finest hour.

It all started with good intentions, of course, she just fell nostalgia from her home, she wanted to clear things up with her mother Hippolyta. They did not part in the best of terms, not to mention how she took the sacred garbs she wore as Wonderwoman from the temple of Hera. She was not supposed to do that; she could argue that those garbs and the lasso of truth were destined for the strongest of the Amazons, something that she was beyond doubt, however, she just simply borrowed them, without asking for any permission or if Hera would be pleased with her for taking the sacred relics.

When all of this started, she was saving a town, the usual JLA stuff; they deal with all kind of global threats; in this case it was more a local threat as a typhoon was about to cause a lot of casualties among the population of a coastal town and the JLA intervened, helping the rescue teams and evacuating the people before they deal with the typhoon itself.

Unfortunately and for her shame, her head was not in the game, she has been with the head on the clouds or better said, in Themyscira, she abandoned the island against the wishes of her mother and what is worst, she stole the same sacred clothes she was wearing now, the clothes that gave her the blessing of Hera, theoretically.

She was a proud amazon, so much was true, but she loved her mother deeply and she was feeling a wave of nostalgia that was interfering with her work as world protector, and by Hera, the world does need protection. If it wasn't alien invasions, it was some overpowered fool and if not a natural catastrophe and if not a magical crisis and so goes the list on. It was kind of overwhelming and did make her ponder a little about how sheltered she and her sisters were in her island, they never had to deal with any of the problems that she was experimenting daily, and not all of them were to blame of the men idiocy like the credo of the Amazons tells.

Truly, they were isolated and ignorant of a lot of things but now that she was experimenting the world of Man, she has to admit, it does have its perks, still hates some things but in all she was satisfied, and has to admit that she has found some very wonderful comrades in the JLA. Until this damn fiasco, she has felt like she walked among a Pantheon once again, each of the heroes of the League were unique and at the same time, she found herself finding commonalities with the myths she knew. Batman and Hades, Green Lantern and Apolo, Flash and Hermes, Cyborg and Hephaestus...there was a lot of curious similarities. The only one that defies all description was Superman, Clark was a unique male, and not only because of his Kryptonian heritage, she had to admit that both were...testing the waters about each other, it was painfully obvious that both were attracted to each other but none of them were exactly sure how to give the first step or if they even want to make that first step.

But that was inconsequential now, she had condemned them all when she accepts the proverbial deal with the devil, in the form of the sorcerer Faust, and blinded by her own arrogance and overconfidence, provided Faust with the method to open the Gates of Tartarus, she was blackmailed into that accursed deal, of course, a very simple but terrible deal. The life of her sisters and her mother in exchange for all the pieces of the key of the Gates.

She couldn't say no but she was clever enough to know that Faust will not uphold his part of the contract, he was a crafty male, a trickster, and an oath-breaker, very much like that ex-boyfriend of Zatanna, Constantine. He wanted some relics, pieces of stone that she didn't understand what was their function until it was too late. Those relics were in several locations, all around the world and she had only twenty-four hours to locate and recover those fragments before the spell over her sisters became permanent.

Thanks, Hera for the speed of those flying ships of the League, the Javelins, a piece of technology that help her pinpoint the three locations and to call Batman about all the knowledge he could muster about that fool of Faust. In hindsight, calling the eternally paranoid Batman was not her best move but if you wanted information, he was the man for the job, his information was always flawless and she had already accustomed to trusting him in that regard.

During the battle for the first piece, she already discovered that Faust did not just want some broken pieces of an old piece of art, but powerful magical artifacts, he had to fight the powerful guardian, a stone giant of brass and stone, of the relic before she could claim it.

She vanquished the giant but at the end of the combat, she has destroyed several invaluable pieces of art and cause a lot of collateral damage to the museum, more than enough to call the attention of Superman and the rest of the League. Superman, Manhunter, and Flash were the first to appear at the museum and after some quick explanations, they all agreed to help Diana; she felt honored for such a confidence, for such demonstration of trust, despite how she had been spare about why she was doing all of this and why. Trust that she betrayed badly, not long after they separated in teams to cover more terrain and gain some more hours to the countdown.

When they found the last crest, stored in a museum of some kind; a Mall, Superman called it, a temple for the credit cards; instead of a guardian, the magic of the crest charmed both of them. Diana believed that he was fighting a hideous demon when in reality she was beating Superman with all she had, Superman has already free himself from the illusion and tried to endure the punishment until he could make her understand the trickery. Another "glorious" moment for the growing list, the sin of viciously attacking an ally who has done nothing but to earn her trust and friendship...and perhaps something more, she was not entirely comfortable on that front.

The other recovery team was not luckier, Flash and Manhunter had to fought a giant snake of some kind that protected the temple on where the fragment was hidden. As usual, it was Batman the one that connected all the dots, meanwhile, all of them were chasing wild gooses in the form of the Keys stone fragments. He confirmed what Diana has already suspected, Faust was a lunatic that has to dabble too much in dark secrets, very dangerous secrets, and after some very controverted theories and discoveries, he was expelled from the faculty of Archaeology, as his theories were heretical and dangerous, bordering the criminal.

She remembered how the bastard had the petrified faces of those doctors who had expelled him, hanging on a plaque over his studio, the terrified expression of those poor victims angered Diana at that moment, and she swore that she will soon kill the sorcerer before he could do more damage.

But he was a slippery bastard and when they ambush him before he could take the key of the gates, he used some kind of spell that blind and deaf all the League, winning enough time to grab Hippolyta and flee to the bowels of Themyscira, where the Gates stand over the broken ruins of one of the first city of the Amazons.

The Queen Hippolyta keep the Gate under her domains, as a permanent reminder of how foolish she was in her younger days and as a reminder of how even the greater ones could fall when the fear corroded their minds and souls. And of course, to never trust the honeywords of anyone, male or female, as she has almost condemned the world to the destruction at the hands of the Titans.

The Gate itself was a humongous piece of stonework, big enough for an army to pass through it. An immense stone lock rest in the center of the gates, surrounded by stone columns that horizontally block any access. Even in the distance, the contained power of what lies behind the gates was more than enough to make Hippolyta shiver in contained fear and apprehension, this foolish male has no idea of what he was unleashing over the world. The queen was tied by a magic bind that kept her in check, draining all her Amazonian strength; otherwise she would have already broken the neck of this idiotic man; even in her relatively old age, as the Amazons have a long live spam, she was still strong and skilled with a sword but the magic that tied her was stronger than her..

She tried to convince the sorcerer of the stupidity of his actions, if he was a man of wisdom, he should see how bad idea was to open those damnable Gates, but the glint of madness in his eyes was all she needed to know that she had no hope since the beginning, those were the eyes of a lunatic, one that will not stop for anything in order to achieve what he wanted. Chained to a stone as a sacrificial offering; much like Andromeda was at the Kraken; Hippolyta had to witness how Faust open the gates and a few seconds later, her worst nightmares slipped past those giant stone doors into the realm of mortals.

Hades was a vision of dark majesty, and Hippolyta's soul sneered at the view of the treacherous coward, she fell in love with eons ago; all the love she could ever felt died the day his treason was known. As arrogant as always, Hades delighted himself in his freedom from the Pit of the forgotten souls, his touch made Hippolyta's skin crawl in disgust, and not only for scorned love but for the dark presence that emanates from the handsome and powerful appearance of Hades. He has changed from the old days, the only thing that remains as she remembered was his black hair, a trait that Diana had too but she preferred not to dig in that statement, it will lead to very uncomfortable questions about the origins of Diana, questions that she didn't want to answer. Tall, powerful and dress with a black armor plate covered in intricate Greek glyph and with a red cape over his shoulders, Hades wore the face of a handsome man in his thirties, full of power and confidence. He was a god, after all, so he had twice in spades.

Without losing his arrogant smirk, he betrayed Faust by revealing an unavoidable truth for all the mortals.

Mortals will only know suffering and death, no matter how much they struggled within the sparks that are their lives.

The dry and aged husk of Faust stumbled and fall to the ground, when Hades tricked him into his own demise, Hades turn his attention to the tied form of Hippolyta, the caressing touch of the gauntlets of Hades were like slugs, running over the skin of her face but Hippolyta challenged the god like the Amazon queen she was. However, when she was saved by the friends of her daughter, she had to admit that despite her adherence to the traditions, she was glad that her daughter brought males to the island, at those males were quite unique, each one of them was different from what she vaguely remembered of the weak and egoistic world of men.

Two of them were capable to fly...one of those was a green-skinned bald man; Hippolyta has never seen something like that, other dress like Hades but he was nothing but a mortal man, and yet there where he was, faring against a god with nothing but his indomitable will, his superb skill and wits. One was a red blur, a streak of red and yellow that free her from the Hades grasp and take her to her daughter before vanishing again, faster than she could see and start attacking Hades from all angles at the same time. For a second, Hippolyta dared to nurture some hope in her heart, despite being men, there was no doubt that they carried powers, unique and strange powers, that they unleashed directly at Hades, who took them all face front.

That was a battle for the ages, and they did seem to damage the god against them but at the end, it has been nothing but a trickery of Hades, who took stand over one of the wrecked buildings and called for the army of the death.

Hippolyta froze when she saw the hordes of skeleton warriors, gray, ashen skins peeled over dry bones, deep red eyes that only spoke for death and carnage stared at them, raising from the ground, paroling from the gates, appearing from the ancient tombs inside the walls of the city, the army grow an grow at impossible and terrific speed. Soon hundreds and hundreds of undead warriors stand in attention surrounding the laughing figure of Hades, who raised his hand and pointed at them, never losing her cocky and arrogant smile, ordering the armies to kill them all.

Except for Hippolyta and her daughter, he has plans for them later.

Diana enraged at those deprecating words and taking the shield and the sword of one of the fallen warriors, start to carve a path in the hordes of undead like the scythe of the reaper, her Amazonian strength was more than enough to obliterate the bodies, sending pieces of broken bones in all directions, before they turned into the dust they have been before the summoning of Hades. Together, mother and daughter, they put a stop to the incoming waves of undead but even with all her martial skills and amazonian stamina, it was clear that they will eventually be overwhelmed by the hordes of skeleton Greek warriors.

The rest of the League was not faring much better, they were as overwhelmed as the two amazons but for some of them; Superman and Manhunter mostly, thanks to their immense strength; cleave a path among the undead was a simple task, as they could throw energy from their eyes, fly and just ram the lines of undead warriors or bull into their lines in said animal into a Chinese shop.

Hades just smiled and behold the spectacle, it was much better-seeing living people bleed and suffer than the boring matches in the Underworld Coliseum, where the dead will only beat the shit out of each other, indifferent to crippling injuries or bleeding wounds. From time to time, he laughed and toss a gigantic fireball to one of the contenders; just to spice the things up a little; he took a liking to do it against Manhunter, that appeared to be especially sensitive to the fire, see him struggle and squirm to evade the fireballs, instead of simply passing through like he seems to do with the undead warriors was an added bonus to the fun of Hades.

Ah, but the cherry on the top of the dark god, was to see the two amazons fight. Hades loved Hippolyta, so much was completely true, however, the treason that sent him to Tartarus created a breach between them, and the stubborn woman was unable to see the truth. When the Titans appeared; and in all honesty, the gods of the Olympus won the battle that day by sheer dumb luck; he feared that the Titans will kill them all. So, he was clever enough and made a deal with them, if they allow the amazons and him live, he will open the Gates of Olympus for them, what he honestly didn't expect was the defeat of the Titans at the end of the day, that was a miracle that left Hades dumbfounded.

Zeus, his own brother, threw him into Tartarus, not giving a fuck about why he did it, considering the fool has sired dozens of bastards and has provoked interminable wars among mortals for a quickie behind the throne of his latest sluts husband, it was kind of hypocritical of him. But in the end, he was the one dammed to Tartarus, to be the King of the Dammed, the god that rules over the Tartarus. He hated it with a passion, Tartarus was a nightmare, especially for a god of his standing and power, it was all about suffering and make the sinners pay for the sins they commit in life.

Ironically, he did it all for love and now that's how they repay him.

Well, as the last batch of the damned used to say in life before they were shot to death, Daddy is in da house, bitches, and he has come to stay.

Hippolyta and her daughter was a more than a welcome bonus of the first step in his conquest of the mortal realm, he will conquer those mortal Zeus was so infatuated with and with the army of Tartarus and the living hell of earth, he will tear apart the gates of Olympus and flay his brother alive for all the suffering he had to endure in Tartarus.

Diana look at the smirk of the god, as he just stood there, observing the armies of the dead tear them apart with their rusted and broken swords and lances, even if her mother and her were from the resilient race of the Amazons, Diana know that she will finally succumb to their unnatural edges, even if he has previously endured bullet shots, knives, and hits from people capable of tear steel apart with their own hands. However, she has to admit, it was good to fight with her mother again, the queen of the Amazon was a spectacle herself, moving her sword like a flash of steel, cutting and beheading any warrior stupid enough to get close to them before she turned to a new enemy and cut them apart like the wheat during the harvest session.

A loud boom echoed in the cavern and an entire platoon of the skeleton warriors went flying in all directions, torn to pieces by the brutal shock wave, like a living missile, Superman took a direct route to Hades and punched his face with all the inertia he carried in his flight.

The god fall from his position, surprised for the strength of the flying man, he was at the same level of Herakles, that strength belongs to the realm of the gods and this Superman, dared to stole that right and use it against a true god. With his face twisted in a bestial snarl, Hades caught the next punch of Superman; a punch that made Hades gauntlet crack; and with a counter swig cleave Supermans chest with the blades etched in the armband of his armor. Nasty black spikes that had the inner blade serrated, so when they hit flesh, the teeth would tear and rend with viciousness.

The blood of the flying man was spilled with easiness, as the divine strength and material of Hades armor surpassed the alien resistance of the Kryptonian; with a surprised grunt of pain, Superman lose concentration for a second, enough for Hades to blindside with a demolishing straight to the face, sending him flying into the farthest wall of the room. Although, his smirk of triumph soon turned into a grimace of pain.

Out of nowhere, a green fist slammed the face of the god, followed by another and another and another, changing his shape into a more powerful form of himself, the Martian Manhunter fought the death god with a mix of fighting skills and mind deception as he send distracting flashes to the god mind, keeping him flat-footed and never leaving him gain some leverage. Martian Manhunter close combat 101, never allow your opponent to recover, hit hard, fast and decisively.

Bored and annoyed of the barrage of hits; still, Hades could respect the ruthlessness and combat progress of the green man; Hades puked a massive fireball at zero distance, covering both of them in the hell fires that he commanded, as Lord of the Tartarus. Once more, Hades victory was short-lived, as a boot kicked his face and a red streak pick the body of the screaming martian, getting him out of the inferno, moving like a red flash, leaving the green martian in a corner of the enormous hall.

Batman took advantage of the opportunity that his comrades had created to throw some Batarangs at the face of Hades, but Hades pick up the throwing weapons in flight and eyed him with curiousness; after all, this bat costumed mortal kind of paid homage to him, dressing as a bat and acting as black crusader of darkness of some sort. He still reeks of rectitude and moral standards, despite cover himself in darkness. It was even more curious how he dwell in violence and fear yet, he pretended to be a righteous crusader. The trail of thought of Hades was soon cut short when the Batarangs explode in his face, not really harming him but this was starting to get seriously annoying for the god of death.

These mortals were resulting to be the funniest thing he had for centuries, nothing similar since he received the last batch of real nasty souls, those that were worth torturing and the occasional innocent that has been killed by being framed for a crime that they didn't commit. The hate and rage of those souls made the best wine in Tartaros, and these last decades, the harvest has been incredibly good. Hades was not a god that indulged himself in personal combat at each chance he had; quite the opposite, Hades was not a battle maniac like Ares, despite the cunning of the god of war that always had a finger in all cakes when war or violence is involved.

Although, Hades has been trapped inside of Tartaros for eons, and when he could walk among the mortal realm once again, he saw no reason not to see for himself how much the mortal world had changed since the Titanomachy.

That day the universe tremble, that accursed day entire pantheons fall and disappeared, like the Asgard barbarians and the Bogovi or the Inuit; others were reduced to a mere shadows of their former glory, it was Hades the one that guided the Titans into the realms of other pantheons, so when the dust settled, Olympus would be standing proud and the rest of the deities not so much. And how did Hades peers paid him for this astute maneuver, the one that would have granted dominance of the Olympus among this worlds pantheons?. They exiled him into the worst of the realms, the Tartaros, a hell that so many cultures fear and with very good reasons to do it so.

Hades frown and another entire legion of skeletal soldiers raise from the floor, overcrowding, even more, space inside the cavern where the ancient city of Themyscira once stood proudly, now reduced to a lot of ruins and barren earth.

The god of death founded the place very appealing, especially considering that right over his head, there was an entire nation of beautiful women like Diana and Hippolyta, they would resist, of course, that was half the fun in all this debacle. Death is boring, Hades knew that lesson tremendously well, he has been performing his duty as Watcher of Tartaros flawlessly, with only a couple of slip-ups here and there, like the one with Faust that led to this situation, curiously, Faust was the only one so far who had managed to trick the Amazons into agreeing to his demands.

Not that it matters anymore as the sorcerer was nothing but dust and bones, like all mortals he would perish when the Moirai cut their life string, so short and so lame that Hades couldn't but deeply despise the short-lived sacks of flesh and blood called humanity, they were nothing but toys at the best.

Hades was so entertained by his own mussing that didn´t see the punch of Superman, at Mach One speed, the Kryptonian had taken space into the air and shot himself like a javelin at the face of Hades, connecting a devastating haymaker into the handsome face of the god, completely smashing his arrogant expression into a painful one.

Still, what could have been a finisher move to almost everything, it was nothing but an annoyance to an entity that has endured way worst punishments during his life and rule as King of Tartaros, painful as it has been, the punch has only managed to severely piss off Hades and for breaking the concentration he needed to maintain to keep his appearance as a devilish handsome human male.

Hades real aspect was beyond hideous, after so many centuries trapped among the howls and agonizing visages of the damned, his own appearance has been had forever altered the originally inhumanely beautiful face of the man; a face that was once considered one of the most handsome gods of Olympus; now turned into a mocking and ugly parody. There were few traits inside the horrid and devilish face of the god of death that appeared too in his usual dark haired handsome Caucasian male. The hair was similar but with a wild and twisted life of his own, along with his three serpentine-like tongues and a bestial muzzle, more akin to a rat of a demon and his slanted eyes, full of malice and darkness.

Distracted by the horrid change in the visage of the god, Superman's eyes widened in surprise when the gauntlets of Hades became claws and drawn bloody lines over his torso, piercing his invulnerable skin like it was nothing. Hades claws were not only deadly for their sharpness but for the poisonous essence that they carry and inflict on their victims, the essence of Tartaros, that corrode the mortal flesh until there is nothing left. In a sense, it was akin to a poisonous wound, with the added effect that any wound made by the claws of the god would not heal and would slowly corrode into necrosis, all the flesh around the wound.

Screaming in pain, Superman flies backward, taking distance from the horrid hybrid that was now the God of Death, only recognizable for his black armor and vestigial traits from were he was trying to pose as the Greek male beauty canon.

Martian Manhunter and Flash took over, charging against the monster with a courage that spoke volumes of both men.

The green man of Mars was a logical and rational soul, with very little tendency to unleash his considerable powers against an enemy but in this case, he got the gloves off and smashed his fist against the god, changing shapes, shooting psi lances at Hades mind, always on the offensive, not leaving any space for a counterattack; it was beautiful in his ruthlessness and efficiency. Flash on the other hand was a playful wind that moved around the battle, hitting Hades with the weapons of the fallen skeletons, as he had learned the bad way that his fist was far less resilient than the armor of Hades, in all the weak spots he could find.

Eyes, knees, he even managed to cut a tongue of Hades with a savage swing of a rusted ax.

Then, Batman joined the battle, he was a man, a human and supposedly the weakest among the Leaguers, yet there he was, fighting a god without an ounce of doubt, using his gadgets; in this case a pair of electrified gauntlets that thundered each time he punched the god in the ribs, the face or the back; to dish his own punishment against Hades, the dark crusader was always moving around: with a foot work that would make green with envy any professional boxer; so Hades could not respond to his attacks.

Hippolyta was flabbergasted by the mortals that her daughter brought to the island with her, each one of this men were facing one of the most feared gods of the Olympus, and none of them had shown the slightest pang of doubt against Hades, a monster that would no doubt claim all their souls, if they fail. She was the queen of the Amazons, she was the one that had to look out for all the Amazons in the island, and right now, she was looking at the worst taboo of the Amazons made flesh and fighting with all they had the one that once, betrayed her heart and almost destroyed the world. Perishing that line of thought, as it was useless right now, and taking a shield and a sword, she joined her daughter in the battle, trying to open a path among the skeletal horde, so they could help the males in their effort to push Hades into the Gates of Tartarus, sealing him again.

Superman, as recovered as he could from the savage wounds he had in his chest, had taken a supportive role, keeping the horde at bay with a mix of frozen breath and heat rays from his eyes, cutting the horde short by great numbers; but it was like fighting the tides, more will raise and continue marching forward as his god commanded them.

The battle against the god grew even more ruthless, as Hades managed to block one of the punches of Batman and with a sickening crunch, completely squashed the hand and the electric knuckles of the man, reducing his hand to a stump of flesh and metallic pieces. It must be said that Batman didn't even scream, just grit his teeth with all his might, and with his sane hand, pick up another of his explosive Batarangs and toss it directly inside the mouth of Hades who could only widen his eyes before the explosion knock him off some teeth from his twisted mouth and make him stumble back a couple of steps.

Flash moved Batman out of the main battle, bandaging the stump of his hands; cleaning in a couple of seconds, a wound that a professional surgeon would need hours of focused tasks; as good as he could given the circumstances, using the medikit that the vigilante always carried with him, no matter when he could go. Unfortunately, even if this battle surgery was needed before Batman bled to death or suffer a blood poisoning from the metal inside his torn hand, Martian Manhunter was now alone against Hades and the impulse of the charge has not been enough to push the sadistic god into the open gates of Tartaro.

Diana and Hippolyta joined the fray, adding their swords to the battle, keeping the push as much as they can, their amazon strength combined with the unholy edge of the weapons of the reanimated corpses was more than enough to cause damage to the flesh of Hades, as both shared a common divine origin. The swords of the Amazon were from the very same soldiers of Hades, full to the brim with the same poisonous powers that curse all life to decay and entropy.

Diana and Martian Manhunter took the lead in the attack, the former with her sword; demonstrating why she was the best warrior the Amazon nation has seen in centuries, and the latter with an efficient display of brute force and martian martial arts that depend on sudden shapeshifts and the constant barrage of distracting psi waves. Hippolyta waited for her chance to bury her sword to the hilt in the heart of the god, she was the queen of the Amazons and her martial prowess was beyond doubt, but it has been centuries since she had taken an active role in the battlefield, relegated to royal duties and in a more strategic position on the battlefield; that same knowledge was the one that she was using, waiting for her daughter and the strange green man to make an opening for her.

Hades was not a glutton for punishment, he had suffered more than enough of that for eons, especially now that he has taken flesh and blood again; something needed in order to conquer this mortal world and spit in the face of all the deities in Olympus by laying waste to the lands that they loved so much, even if modern devotion was nothing but a shallow mockery in comparison with the faith that the mortal professed them in the past. The King of Tartaro was conscious of how fickle the faith of mankind could be, how they fail to keep even the slightest sliver of loyalty to those that did everything for them. No Pantheon, in any world, would give a fuck about those that had betrayed them, even if they kissed the ground they walked.

Hades block the incoming tail of the green shapeshifter, so odd and so alien, the last of his kind, much like the Kryptonian; and soon Hades will make both species extinct; using Martian Manhunter as a maul he slammed his body against the shield of Diana, making her kneel before him, and before the green stain could react, Hades started his own counterattack. He kicked Diana on the leg, keeping her on her kneels and possibly, considering the crack of the sound, with a broken knee or worst, the Amazon warrior snarled in pain but in an incredible show of strength she pushed the shield and surprising Hades, ram the edge of the shield against his face, using it as a battery ram to push him more and more into the open gates.

Hippolyta saw her chance and with a mighty leap, thrust her sword in a straight thrust, directly at Hades heart, using all of the Amazonian strength that she could muster. Without a doubt, it was a commendable effort, pity that Hades was not so weak to perish for something like that. The sword managed to penetrate the pitch black armor of the god of death, but it failed to penetrate deeper into his divine flesh; despite the strength of Hippolyta, Hades was of sturdy material. She smiled widely at the anger and pain the god showed when the sword pierced his flesh.

Twirling his body, he caught Diana of balance, making her fly into the gates of Tartarus, and at the same time, he clawed the tunic and the flesh of Hippolyta, leaving a nasty mark on her pristine and immortal flesh, making the queen shriek for the pain and the horrid feeling of the poison of the Tartaro spreading through her veins.

Superman and Flash joined the battle once again, the last son of Krypton; doing his best to ignore the pain and the numbing sensation of the poison; fly with all his incredible might, smashing the bestial god into the floor with a tremendous right hook, before shooting his characteristic laser beams from his eyes into the chest plate of the armor of the god, quickly making it white hot and burning the god alive inside his own armor. In the meantime, Flash has managed to get both amazons out of the danger and near the recovering Batman, who was limping to the key of the gate, battling the shock of his lost hand with pure force of will.

Diana only had a broken knee, something she would heal in time, and she could easily compensate the crippling injury by simply flying over the floor, once she makes sure her mother was in a safe position; the poisoning was especially dangerous to those of Olympian origins after all; she snapped in two the closest skeleton soldier and took his blade, flying along a recovered Martian Manhunter into the battle. The last martian join the efforts of Superman with her own eye beams, increasing the pressure over the fallen god, before Diana shouted a powerful battle cry and grabbing her sword with two hands, tried to impale the chest of the monster, aggravating the injury her mother inflicted to Hades. In any other circumstances, against a lesser being, that maneuver would have won the day, but this time, they were facing a god, a God of Death, the one that endured eons boiling in his own rage, hate and the agony of every twisted soul around him.

Once the sword pierced through the armor, the essence of Hades materialized in a brutal wave of hellfire, tossing the three flying heroes around like broken dolls, each one of them sporting grievous burns over their bodies, as the infernal fires of Tartaros could burn everything they touch. Kneeling in the broken floor, the imposing and terrific visage of Hades manifested himself in the middle of an inferno, over his scarred and tortured form was the faces of millions of tortured souls screamed for mercy or in eternal pain and agony. If the previous visage of Hades was one that reflected his status and a monster, this was the one that reflected his status as supreme lord of the underworld, the being that carried death and damnation anywhere he steps foot. But this time, and for the first time since the begging of the battle against the twisted god, they could sense how Hades showed one emotion, that none of them could believe it was possible.

Hades turn his face and twisted his expression in one of hate and fear, once he saw how Batman was pushing the key back to the locked position.

Batman could not know what he was unleashing, he could not know what exactly was he doing; mostly because his mind was already overloaded with the effort of blocking the pain and the unconsciousness that comes when your hand is squashed like a melon under a jackhammer and you keep using that same stump to push a stone piece of several kilos. Unknown to Batman, he was doing something that no mortal has dared to do since Prometheus give the mortal kind the primordial fire, he was opening a gate that not even Pandora dared to open; one of the most dangerous secrets of Tartaro was being released, a secret that Hades keep close to him, filling the old saying of keeping your enemies closer than your friends.

Hades breathed a torrent of flames directly into Batman's position, but the human stood defiantly and keep pushing the stone key, whatever he was doing, it was obvious that the god didn't like it and only because of that, Batman keep doing it. Hindsight, it could not have been great of the ideas, but if whatever he was doing was enough to make a god of death show fear, then it was something that he would use against the god that was menacing to transform his world into a wasteland. Flash moved, however, even the speedster knew that he would not reach his friend in time, he was too far and his reaction has been too slow, blinded and busy with the rescue of Martian Manhunter from the flames that were eating him alive; flames being Martian Manhunters kryptonite. But Flash run, confident on the idea that even if he could not take Batman out of the trajectory, he could, at last, push him out of it.

For all the League, the time seems to get into a stop, a picture that none of them would ever forget.

Superman already ready to fly at his top speed to save his friends, Manhunter with a hand extended and the teeth gritted, trying to focus his telekinesis into a pull that would take Flash and Batman out of the way of the hellfire torrent, Wonder woman with her lasso already in the air, she could try to drag them out of it. The souls on the fire screamed at the two heroes in their trajectory, slowly but steady gaining more and more terrain, the heat burn through the suits of both heroes, making their skins crawl in protest for the agonizing temperatures, but soon it would be the last of their problems, the flames will consume them to the bone, leaving nothing but two piles of ash.

Hippolyta, laying on a stone ruin, did something that she had never done since the day of the Titanomachy.

She prayed, to Hera, to Zeus, to Ares, to Aphrodite, to Athena, to Hephaestus, to whatever deity that could be hearing her desperate plea, this mortals had earned her respect and eternal thanks for stand along her and her daughter, for trying to save her lands from the accursed god in front of her. A real call, a desperate call, the call that one makes when the universe has been so unfair that your very soul cries for retribution, calls for justice and what is more important...Vengeance.

Hippolyta sensed it.

Something had answered her call, something had listened to her prayer, but there was something odd, The queen of the Amazons was familiar with the tingle that her soul feel each time she felt the presence of one of her gods; being it Hera, Aphrodite, or any other of the patronesses of the Amazons. This time was different, this time was a cold and shivering sensation, a chill that crawled all the way to her soul. Buried in the long memory of the ancient Amazon, something stirred, she remembered that sensation and she had the instinctual knowledge that it was something that she and the rest of the Olympians feared in the past.

The fire of Hades, something that could burn down everything in his path collided with something that could endure until the end of times.

Unstoppable Force, Unmovable Object.

The gong and the shock wave resultant of the impact of those two colossal forces shocked the entire cave and send every witness flying in different directions like birds scattered from a heavy wind, they soon reacted and just contemplate wide-eyed how the prayers of Hippolyta has been answered, although not the way she would have expected.

A solid, ten feet tall, wall of ice has stopped the torrent of flames of Hades, without melting at all, protecting both heroes from the heat and the explosion of the collision.

The ice was shaped like if it was wood and stone, like the ones that one founds in ancient settlements, previous to the era of the fortified castles of the medieval times.

With a thunderous sound, a hand appeared in one side of the gate of Tartarus, the massive hand grabbed one of the leaves of the door, making the supposedly indestructible material cringe and protest under his powerful grip. Flames of the Pitt danced over the hand, covering it in a cloak of hellfire that did not seem to be affecting the flesh at all. As soon as this hand appeared in the door, Hades immediately turn his attention to this newcomer in the battlefield.

With a pull that made the hinges of the door of Tartaro protest with metallic noise, a figure emerged from the infinite abyss, and when it came to the lights of the fires of Hades, all the League and Hippolyta stared in astonishment at the one that had defied the fires of Tartaros and won.

The best description was a viking warrior of the ancient times, fifteen foot tall and made of what seems to be a mix of darkness, steel, and ice, his entire frame exuded cold; creating twirls of mist when his presence and the fires of Hades meet each other; his chest was bare and his skin looks to be some kind of darkish blue metal, his face was hidden under the shadows of a helmet that only show two ice blue glowing spots and the line of a mouth, closed into a snarl of disgust and barely contained anger.

" **Hades"** echoed his voice over the cave, in a tone that made all the League flinch, as it has transmitted enough hate and rage to shock all of them into an alarm state, fearing a strike from the shadows at any moment.

" **Silence, mongrel"** snarled Hades to the warrior, growing himself to equal the height of the massive northern warrior **"get back to your cage before I rip your heart out and make you eat it".**

 **"Oathbreaker"** accused the Viking warrior and Hades give a step back like he has been hit **"betrayer, kin-slayer, coward".**

" **Enough, barbarian dog!"** roared Hades and extending a hand created several spikes of hellfire that fly to the body of the Viking.

With a wave of the Viking giant hand, free of the hellfire that he carried when he steps out of Tartarus, the spikes were repelled by a sudden gust of chilling wind that froze the terrain on where both creatures stood. In a second, a dense cape of snow covered the floor, the temperature dropped substantially in the seconds on were both monsters maintain a silent duel. Hades burning in hate and rage, but other just stood there, unmovable like a stone statue, cold as the winter that he has carried with himself into the cave.

" **This is not your battle,** _ **thrall**_ **"** mocked Hades making his fire burn hotter, melting the snow of the entire platform where both were facing each other **"your home is ashes now, the Titans obliterated it until there was nothing left, you failed filthy barbarian, now go back to your cage where the dogs like you belong".**

The Viking warrior did not respond to the words and provocations of Hades. He was intelligent enough to have already deduced that it was more than probable that the treacherous god was telling the truth, the Olympian would use what would hurt him the most, and in this case, it carried the weight of truth. Instead of verbally responding to Hades taunt, he just raised his right hand and pronounce a single word that made all the presents in the cave, shudder and felt a sudden chill down their spines.

" **Nauthr"**.

A brutal bearded ax, a skeggox, weapons that were iconic of Viking raiders, materialized in the hand of the Viking warrior. With a handle made of blackish ash tree reinforced with metal and a wicked edge that had a bluish glow emanating from the runes that covered the blade surface. This was not a weapon, this was a death sentence given form and Hades instantaneously noticed it. Hades opened his monstrous mouth and breathed and an ocean of flames to the northern warrior; the man just raised the head of the weapon. Before the flames could touch the bluish steel they died, snuffed by the impossible cold that irradiated from the viciously sharp edge of the blade of the skeggox; once the flames died, the Viking started to walk ahead, indifferent to the ocean of flames that the stream of hellfire thrown at him was leaving at his sides.

Step by step, the Asgard warrior got closer to Hades, who keep breathing an inferno against him, flooding the giant Viking with a veritable sea of hellfire, still, the hellfire did nothing to stop the Viking, who continue moving forward; Hades realized how this was not working and with a wave of his hand, threw an entire legion of his skeleton soldiers at the giant, who simply pass through them like they were not there. The skeletons jump at him, only to rebound and be crushed under his feet, none of their weapons could pierce his steel-like skin or the unbreakable darkness that seems to be his flesh; the skeletons crumbled when their bones became brittle under the subzero temperatures that surrounded the warrior, destroying themselves just by moving into the aura of winter that accompany each step of the Viking giant.

Hades changed of strategy and charged at the warrior with his claws ready to tear him apart and toss his butchered corpse to Cerberus, back on his palace inside Tartarus. The god of death took the Viking by surprise with that daring charge, and the claws of Hades scratched the belly of the warrior, leaving scars over the steel flesh and sending several pieces of shrapnel flying in all directions. On a side note, those same shrapnel pieces vanished in the air like evaporated water, as soon as they separated from the main body of the giant but before Hades could claw the throat of the warrior in the following uppercut, the skeggox counterattack and fell like a frozen meteor over the already damaged breastplate of Hades, burying itself till the handle inside the fiendish flesh of Hades, piercing his armor with surprising easiness.

Roaring in pain, worst pain that any of the mortals had managed to inflict on him, Hades violently kicked the Viking, sending him flying against the opposite wall. Tearing the ax from his flesh, Hades toss the weapon to the side; wherever the ax touched the flesh of the god, smoke raised from the contact; and grabbing his wound, he hissed to the Viking warrior before surrounding himself on a tornado of hellfire;

The League was astonished to say the last, Hippolyta was the oldest among them, and even she has never seen a battle like this. She was the one that led the Amazons on the days of the Titanomachy but in those days, what she faced in battle, where mostly the progeny of the Titans; the chimeras and the Hekkatonkeires spawns; not the Titans itself, as they were a League above her own; now she can see by herself what the gods had to face, a true battle between gods, no holds barred. A notion that soon became reality when Hades and the Viking warrior faced each other; leaving behind any pretense of humanity; showing themselves as what they truly are for the mortal witnesses in front of them; not even the Amazon had contemplated such display of power since the days of the Era of the gods, when the Olympian roamed the earth.

Hades was the first that emerged from his cocoon of hellfire, all pretense of benevolence and warmth discarded to incarnate the most basic fear of humanity, the Grim Reaper. The incarnation of death that any mortal and supernatural creature, no matter the culture, fears.

Carrying a scythe, pale like a ghost with a neutral and cold expression in his translucent face, Hades embraced his most terrific aspect, the Unseen one, the one that takes the life of the mortals and dragged them to Tartaro when they meet his final breath and the Moirai cut their life threads.

Facing him, it was the Abyss.

The eternal night that precluded the universe, when there was nothing, just an emptiness void of darkness that consumes everything, not living, not death, just in between, eternal and unchangeable, waiting for the end of all things, and the beginning of the next. A mass of darkness that moves like a blanket, leaving nothing behind it.

They collided in the space of the roof of the cave, devouring with their mere presence, tons of rocks from the earth, vaporized when the scythe tried to pierce the darkness and only pass right through it, destroying everything else in its path. No mortal words could be used to describe what the League was witnessing, even Hippolyta was without words to give a name to the conflict right above their heads, instead they just simple observed, as a mute witness of what a battle between entities way beyond their understanding of how the universe works. The battle continued, indifferent to the presence of the astonished Leaguers and amazons, each one of the beings tried to outdo the other. Unfortunately, none of them could achieve such a feat, failing at the end, as none of the two could outsmart or overwhelm the other, they were too balanced to really had a chance to put an end to the battle in this form.

The scythe could not claim what is not alive, and the Abyss could not engulf something that is the end of all things, colliding like water and oil, they created a massive hole in the stone roof of the cavern, each time one of them moved to blindside the other, trying to win an advantage point, they destroy or vaporize several tons of stone, augmenting the already impressive size of the old cavern.

After a final clash that almost made the entire cave fall over their heads, the two entities fall to the ground, at a good distance of each other and slowly solidify into the previous; more humane; forms that they had at the beginning of the combat. Nothing of their surroundings; buildings and constructions destroyed as if a bomb had fallen directly on them; had survived the impact when they landed in their avatar forms; fortunately, the League was in another place, far from the war zone of both monsters, observing the battle with awe and no little pangs of fear about what they were seeing. It was a very humble experience for all the Leaguers, considered the epitome of power and sometimes they are compared to the gods of old lore. Now they were seeing what a battle between gods could truly be, and even then, they have to be grateful that they are contained into the city-sized cavern, what any of this two could have done in a big city like Metropolis or Keystone would be something out of a nightmare.

Hades was once again into his dark-haired handsome male visage, but his body and armor sported a dozen of red lines from where blood and fire was spilling in the charred and devastated floor, in the case of the Viking, his body sported silver scars and some kind of dark blue liquid and freezing mist seem to pour from the wounds on his giant steel like body. The hate in the face of Hades was clear as a day, along a glint of respect and no little fear for the monster that was facing him in equal grounds; this northern warrior has been capable of withstanding the overwhelming power of his most dangerous and powerful manifestation as King of Tartarus, a feat that very, very few could boast to achieve and none of them did in nothing but whispers and shivers.

The Viking just stood where he had fallen, standing proudly his ice blue glowing spots on the eyes of his helmet focus on Hades like the eyes of a predator; relentless and cruel.

" **To me, Nauthr"** called the Viking for his weapon, his voice still echoing inside the metal and the darkness of his helmet.

As a living thing, the skeggox fly directly at his hand; once the weapon was back with him, the Viking increased the grip over the wooden handle of the weapon, taking a proper combat stance, ready for whatever Hades could throw at him. Hades observed the northern prepare to fight close and personal, taking a combat stance with his accursed ax ready. Hades would not give him that satisfaction, all the barbarians like him were incredibly fond of one on one battles, but Hades was not a warrior, he could defend pretty well himself but Hades always thought that this kind of brutish combat was something fit for Ares and his kind; Hades was a god of death, not a god of war.

Channeling whats left of his power, greatly dismissed after adopting the visage of the Reaper, took in all the hellfire he could muster into a massive fireball that sucked the air of the cave, increasing the heat on the place and melting all the snow on the ground, created when the northerner exited through the Gates of Tartarus. This was it, it was all or nothing now, and Hades hated being cornered like this, even if he achieved victory over the Viking dog, Hades knew that he would be in such a weakened state that Hippolyta and the rest of that mortal pest that dared to challenge him before all this, would have a chance to push him back into Tartarus. Now that he had finally managed to scape, they will send him in, but it matters not; Hades knew that at some point in the future, another stupid mortal would commit the same mistake as the pitiful sorcerer that he has killed as soon as he stepped out of the Gates, and all of this would begin again, but this time, Hades will make sure that the Viking would not be around to mud his triumph.

The Viking saw the fire and knew that it was the end of the battle, Hades was as extenuated as him and he was putting all he had in one last attempt to vaporize all of them, the mortals and the amazons included.

The thin line in the shadows of his helmet, opened to reveal a white-fanged smile, widening into a predatory grin as the Viking slam the blunt tip of the handle of his skeggox in the frozen earth and raising his head to the cracked roof of the cave, start to laugh, a disdainful and mocking laugh that echoed into the broken halls and buildings over the abandoned first city of the Amazons, shaking the earth around him with each laugh.

" **I never had you for a coward, oath-breaker"** echoed the voice of the Viking, looking directly at Hades, with his fanged mouth turned upside in a wolfish grin, full of amusement and malice **"Norns, I always knew you were no warrior, just a carrion that feeds on the glory of others, but this is a new low for you, betrayer".**

Hades keep the fireball floating over his head, he should not answer to the taunts of the barbarian, but in the centuries that he has had him under chains, the bloodied northerner has managed, every single time, to piss off Hades until the King of Tartarus beat him black and blue or red and black, depending if Hades used his fists or his claws. After that, Hades would throw him into the Coliseum that he had in Tartarus, setting him against Tartarus most vicious demons, beasts and the occasional soul that grow from the ranks of the tortured into a promising leader for the armies of Hades.

" **Scared now, dog?"** laughed Hades, using a sliver of his power to repair his armor and face, he would never show weakness, just in case those little toys of Hippolyta tried to do something clever **"I am pleased, at last, you learn what your place is, should I go for the leash?, Cerberus would be delighted to have a new bitch to play".**

The laugh of the Viking giant grew louder.

" **Olympians, bedding anything that moves is the only thing you lot have in mind"** chuckled dismissing the innuendos of Hades **"not really a surprise Rea was so disappointed with her firstborn, a coward that became the bitch of his little brother and had to kidnap and marry his own cousin because he was not man enough to court a woman the right way".**

The rest of the present in the cavern blinked at the exchange of words that the two monsters had, not given credit to the notion of how those two powerful beings were bickering like teenagers, always twisting their words to made very insulting sexual innuendos to the other. Truth to be told, both of them were nothing but stalling, winning time to see what kind of trick was the other trying to pull out of his sleeves.

Under the giant Viking shaped form that he was using for battle, the consciousness and the original body of the northern god were plotting how to put an end to this battle and to protect the ones that have free him from Tartarus from Hades wrath. Perhaps they didn't know it, but with the last twirls of the key of the gates, they had free him from the chains that imprisoned him in Tartarus; the same chains that had been imprisoning him since the Ragnarok broke, leaving him free to hunt the bastard that had betrayed him, chaining him to the walls of Tartarus, the only Underworld where he had no Authority.

The northerner could respect a clever tactic, he could respect a good trick or a masterful plan; but the cowardly and treachery that Hades displayed the day of the Titanomachy was something that pissed him off immensely, up to a point on were he didn't give a damn about how has he bounded his fate to the fates of the mortals and amazons that observed him with surprise, fear, and astonishment on their faces. Fatebounds were never a laughing matter, those invisible binds could bring damnation at the drop of a hat, any hat, anywhere on the planet. A lesson the northerner learn well during his first days as a young hero, a Scion of Odin recently awaken to the wonders and horrors of the World, Overworld, and Underworld.

" **Pitiful barbarian"** scowled Hades increasing the size of the fireball, this verbal bickering has grown boring very quickly, Hades hated when someone treated him without the respect he deserved **"you are going to die, here and now, and with your death, all of your filthy kind will be erased from the world, now, behold my might hand and perish!"** roared Hades, closing his hand into an armored fist. For a second, the universe paused as the fireball collapse and exploded itself into a roaring inferno.

The flames raised until they collide with the damaged roof, spreading around like a flood, burning everything in their paths.

Before Hades close his hand into a fist, Flash was already of the move, dragging thew injured Batman and Hippolita with him in a blur of speed and his yellow bolts of lightning, meanwhile the rest of the League fly at the top of their speed, going back from where they had descended into the subterranean city, chasing after Faust at the beginning of all this debacle, as if all the demons of hell were after their heels; a not so wrong comparison; the superheroes got out of the caverns, directly at the palace, running out of the way of the geyser of hellfire that erupted from the passageway into the forgotten city. The flames did not stop and continue traveling to the roof of the palace and crashing right through it, escaping into the skies outside and roaring with fury over all the nearby buildings; some flames fall all over the island like a veritable rain of fire.

Luckily, there were no petrified amazons near the torrential geyser of hellfire, all of them were scattered over all the island, and only the group that confronted Faust the first time where near close to the hall of the palace on where the JLA and the Amazons had exited from the collapsing cavern.

Before any of them had time to recover the breath, a savage tremor threw all of them off balance. The entire island suddenly moved, shaking its very foundations with a tremor that send a lot of buildings from the surroundings of the palace into the ground, the entire island seem to move to one side, slipping his entire mass and sending a thunderous cracking sound to the skies.

Superman took flight in a second and reaching enough altitude, he scanned the island with his X-ray vision, what he saw let him with the mouth hanging open; he was one of the strongest beings in the planet, he could have sunk the island if he wanted, punching it until he cratered it, but what he was seeing was something that he could have done; mostly because he had already tried it and failed. However, he was seeing that same action being accomplished with cold brutality and efficiency that would make Bruce proud.

Recovering from the sudden tremor and being cautious about the dozen more than shackled the island, Hippolyta leaned over the rail of one of the windows of the halls of the castle where they had taken refuge from the torrent of hellfire that had come his way when Hades unleashed his last resort against the northerner stranger that had defied him in his domain. She eyed the outside, worried and fear painted in her expression as the fires fall all over the island and the sudden tremor has waste some buildings, buildings occupied by her kin, the Amazons were defenseless against such onslaught, and she feared that in their petrified state they could have done nothing but wait for the death. Hellfire could torch the stone and the flesh with equal easiness, or they could be buried alive and broken into pieces by the falling rubble of the collapsed buildings.

"By Hera!" screamed Hippolyta, a few moments after she was looking out for her sisters, she looked down to the entrance of the palace, just in time to see how a hundred meters of the terrain exploded from underground, sending pieces of earth and stone into the sea, hundreds of meters away..

A massive werewolf crawled out of the hole, the majority of his fur covered in a shroud of darkness, only his blue glowing eyes, and gleaming fangs could seem out of the shroud; all over his body he was sporting numerous wounds and burns, with a broken leg and all the parts of his body out of the shroud were charred and blackened by the disgusting touch of Tartarus, but even in his damaged state, the werewolf managed to stand proudly on his broken legs and with a primal gesture of triumph, he roared his victory to the skies above. Never since the age of the primordial predators has been emitting a roar like this; a primal thunder that echoed in the cold air of the dusk of Themyscira.

Creating waves, the howl covered the entire island, shacking all the witness like they have been hit by the shock wave of a powerful explosion, but in front of the amazed eyes of the JLA and Hippolyta, each time the waves hit one of the petrified amazons, their bodies suffer no damage, instead they started to transform back into their flesh bodies, the howl was cleansing all the fires over the island, snuffing the hellfire like were candles in front of a hurricane. When the roar started to face, the entire population of the island and all the hellfires were turned back into flesh and all the fires shut down. The JLA and the Amazons that were closer had to cover their hears at the sound of the roar, but it was not only because the loud noise but because how the sound sent tingles all over their souls. They were in the presence of a beast that scourged the earth long before humanity predecessors had even though about leaving the seas, a monster that predated gods at the beginning of the times, the manifestation of the top of a primordial ecosystem.

However, inside the finals echoes of the godly roar, hidden in the sounds that no beast throat would never be been able to produce, roaring, howling, growling all the same time combined into one, inside all that cacophony there were words that all of them could understand, no matter their language or method of communication. As the old saying goes, there was no need for words.

" **I AM DÝR WOTANSSON, PROUD SON OF ASGARD, GOD OF THE WILD HUNT, HEAR MY ROAR AND TREMBLE, TITANS, FOR I AM ALIVE, AND I CLAIM WERGELD".**

As the echo of the roar died, the form of the werewolf started to recede into a lesser human form, after a few tumbling steps with his left leg broken, the human shape collapsed face first into the hard terrain of the amazons island, slowly losing consciousness but with a massive victory grin on his fanged mouth, under the shadows of the helmet.

Dýr was back in the hunt, may Fate had mercy on the souls of his enemies, because he will not.


	2. Golden Beast

Themyscira/Gates of Tartarus

Opening doors to other realms are never, ever, a good idea. Only desperate people or people who should have thought twice before are the ones that dare to cross certain thresholds

Hades, god of the Underworld, one of the three great gods of Olympus, was one of the latter.

A very stupid and arrogant fool called Faust summon his voice from Tartarus. Faust managed to sneak into Themyscira, the sacred land of the Amazons, and Hades would give the sorcerer credit for that, the Amazons are not the most gracious of the host and all their culture was based on the idea of distrust if not direct hate against any male out there, no matter the species or the race.

Once the sorcerer was on the island, he cast a powerful curse over the Amazons, with the help of a very powerful talisman that Hades told Faust where he could find it.

In a flash of light, the entire population of the island was turned into stone statues. Hades nursed the thought of what would through the Gorgon sisters about this; they despised all the Olympians and will no doubt throw quite the party at the fall of the Amazons.

With all the Amazons as statues, Faust only has to patiently wait for the arrival of the real pawn in all this game Hades was playing. The opportunity has presented in front of him by his own volition, otherwise, it would have been impossible for Hades to guide the foolish sorcerer into completing a series of objectives with a very specific purpose in mind; releasing Hades from his imprisonment in Tartarus at the end of the Titanomachy.

Those cretins of the Olympian pantheon had no idea of the horrors that the Titans truly were, not even his brothers Zeus and Poseidon, the two that stood at his side when they vanquish and took down Kronos, could start to imagine what kind of powers the Titans hold, what truly dangerous they were.

Titans are supreme beings, creatures that embodies aspects of the reality, killing one is destroying a piece of such concept; a stupid idea if Hades has ever heard one and the one-eyed barbarian dared to kill one of the Titans to prove the concept right.

Hades never understood why any of his family, not even his loved one, Hippolyta, did not see what was obvious, Titans could not be stopped, just delayed; at some point the supreme beings will get what they want, they are eternal, they are stronger than the gods and killing them could destroy the universe, the game was rigged since the beginning; so, Hades did what any sane mind would do in such a situation and made a pact with the Titans.

In essence, Hades gets a piece of what's left of the universe and is left alive, along his lover and his children, as long as they worship the Titans and be forever loyal to them; Hades knew that the latter part of the pact was impossible but alas, it was better to have a chance in the future than to die horribly because you are to blind to see that you have lost.

The Aesir, the northern pantheon, did not agree. Those barbarian from Asgard face the Titans head on, charging at them like the bloody berserkers they were famous for and stalling them for more than enough time for the Olympians and the rest of the Pantheons to regroup and join the fray with all their might backing them up, instead of half defeated already when Hades open the Tartarus for them.

Sheer dumb luck, nothing else, sheer dumb luck was the crucial factor that defeated the Titans that day.

The interference of the Aesir was the cornerstone of the defeat of the Titans, they lost too many of their troops on the suicidal run of the Aesir, they were not prepared for the arrival of the rest of the Pantheons of the old world to join the battle and finally push them back into Tartarus, this time, Hades had to join his immortal parents in their exile to the dark dimension, becoming the Lord of the Pitt of the Lost Souls and eternally cursing both the Aesir and the Olympians for their stupidity.

But Hades was not like that, oh, sure, he had passions like any sane god would have, but he was more than capable of reigning his instincts in and get his head out of his gutter to actually do something useful instead of just dicking around like Zeus or Hera.

Still, and in order to be as fair as possible, Hades loved Demeter too, however, she loved Hippolyta even more, the Queen of the Amazons was the most beautiful thing Hades has ever seen and she has to be his; Demeter and him reached an agreement on that matter, contrary to Zeus, Hades preferred not to be a bloody cheating liar and explained Demeter that he had fallen in love with Hippolyta.

Mind you, that Hippolyta rejected him, quite violently, when the gods kicked his ass back into Tartarus for letting the Titans escape; so at the end, all his plans and manipulations, all his ideas and objectives were reduced to ashes in the eternal fires of the Pitt.

Felix Faust needed power, desired power like a drug, he may hide it under a guise of being a scholar of the occult arts and all that claims that he made, but Hades knew better, he was a lunatic with a thirst for the power that the arcane arts offered to the fools that believe that it is a quick way into power.

Magic is not that easy; sure, it could appear as a shiny trinket that will satisfy your entire desires with a few words and some hand gestures, but it couldn't be farther from the truth. Anyhow, Faust contacted him, a God, asking for the supreme knowledge and Hades smiled and cut a deal with the sorcerer.

Credit when is due, Faust did manage to fill his part of the deal and find a way to open the gates of Tartaro, a feat that very few mortals could have ever dream to accomplish; and Hades walked outside of the Gates, more than happy of being out of Tartaro.

Truth to be told, Hades suspected that the sorcerer had more possibilities to be killed at the second he put feet on the island but Faust did not only manage to trick the entire island but to wait for him outside of the Gates with Hippolyta chained as if she was Andromeda in front of the Kraken was quite a surprise and an unexpected but welcomed gift.

Mortals will perish, simply as that. That was the supreme knowledge; at last, what Hades believed at his black and bitter head, that was; no matter how much the mortals raise among their peers, they were dammed to die at some point, sooner or later, death will find them and took them as it should be.

Hades took good note of remembering the expression in Faust's face when he started to age and accelerated rate, and become a decrepit shadow of the ambitious and eager man he was, in the prime of his life; frankly, for Hades it was quite amusing, Hades loved when the mortals realized that they were nothing but toys for the gods, nothing but mere specks of dust in the intensity of the universe.

As one genius said; I am only sure of the human stupidity. That´s one true statement if Hades ever eared one.

Although, the real surprise was none other than Hades own daughter, mind you that Hades recognize the lineage of Diana as soon as he saw her, it was hard not too, she was practically his own image with the gender reversed. If Hades remembered correctly, he and Hippolyta crafted together a statue of divine beauty and inner strength, with the clay of Themiscyra as a base, it does seem that Hippolyta infused life into the statue after his fall into Tartaro.

Not that surprising, Olympus was full to the brim with all kind of demigods, Olympian gods were quite promiscuous; specially, Zeus, his bed conquest were legendary on its own; so the presence of a demigod among this Justice League was not as surprising as one would think, however after the Titanomachy, there were few surviving Pantheons and among those, their power was far from being at their peak, that means that the divine presence in the world was at their lowest since the Dark ages.

Still, beating the shit out of each other was not how Hades would have expected to meet his "daughter", nor to have to face a lot of strange; yet powerful, so much Hades would admit; beings that were dressed in colorful suits and had a lot of skills that could pass as Divine boons, however, Hades did not sense anything divine in any of them; not in their bodies, at last, all have been in contact with the supernatural at some point and that echo, still appeared in their souls; only in Diana, after all, she was an amazon, a powerful amazon to be more precise.

For a little while, Hades enjoyed himself with the novelty of physical combat, it has been quite a while since he experimented the rush of adrenaline, the exhilaration of dealing with your enemies close and personal, seeing their blood spill at your hands and see them defeated at your feet. Since the war with the Titans, Hades had not found any worthy challenge, not including Lucifer and the other Demonic Lords that plagued the Underworld.

As ridiculous as it sounds, even if the Underworld is relatively infinite, it was nothing but a tiny playground for all the demonic lords that had their seats of power there, always trying to expand their domains at the expense of the others. Mostly by war, but the cloak and dagger in the back, tricks and politics are everyday occurrences on the Underworld. Hades, as King of Tartaro, had a big piece of the Underworld under his domain, specially after how a lot of deities that had domain under Death fall at the hands of the Titans, more than enough to grant some envies and plots to dethrone him, but Hades needed that distractions from the boring duty of being the King of Tartarus. After the first thousand years, all tortures became boring and repetitive, the echoes of the damned an annoying screech and the power over the Underworld a chore, more than a privilege.

Anyhow, Hades was enjoying the battle, it was most refreshing to battle with beings that could take a beating, not like the Demon Lords like Lucifer or Satanus and his dammed sister but close enough to present a challenge for a God manifested in flesh on the mortal plane. Poor idiots, if a god unleashed all his power in a place like this, Themyscira will cease to exist, the power of one of the three great gods of Olympus was nothing to scoff off, however, Hades didn't want to vaporize the island, mostly for two reasons.

One, the island, even if it was nothing but a glorified piece of land, was the sacred ground of Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, and Artemis, destroying the land would give the aforementioned goddess more than enough reasons to intervene, personally, and that would be disastrous, any of those women were already headaches of their own, all four together would be nightmare of epic proportions.

Two, Hades need a solid base from where he could launch his conquering campaign of the mortal realm and burn it to the ground in the faces of his family, back in Olympus.

Hades wanted vengeance, and nothing will stand his way until he finally achieved it, not even his old love Hippolyta, not even his own daughter Diana, and of course, not this colored bunch of freaks of nature that were blessed with all kind of powers of a dozen different origins, except the one that was clothed like a bat, Hades saw it as a very funny thing, a grown-up man wearing a black and gray costume resembling a bat, hilarious.

The battle began as soon as they reached the old ruins of the first city of the Amazons; an underground massive city, as big as half as the island; buried under the earth of Themyscira, so Hippolyta could hide her biggest shame, falling into the honey-laced lies of Hades and opening the Gates of Tartaro for him, allowing the Titans to roam free into the Overworlds, the lands of all the Pantheons on earth. The Olympian gods buried the old city and punish Hippolyta to forever be the guardian of the Gates, her flesh would never be allowed to leave the city shores.

The League reached the Gates but it was already too late, they see how Hades dealt with Faust, turning him into a consumed old man and tossing him like yesterdays' garbage, before he smiled wickedly at the chained Hippolyta, only those with enhanced hearing could listen to the conversation, and how Hades was smugly flirting with Hippolyta, who shuddered at his touch. Diana saw red and flying at her top speed, she punched Hades with enough force to send the god skidding several meters back; stunned for the impact, that would have demolished an entire building.

The League was facing a deity, it was one of their few first times, even after the months that had passed since they banded together, the League has always dealt with relatively metahuman affairs, perhaps the one most accustom to magic was Diana, as she was the Princess of the Amazons and had a lot of contacts in the magic community, but a full-fledged god was something new for all of them.

Superman and Martian Manhunter took point and begun their assault on Hades, both were some of the most powerful beings on earth and none of them were human, just a couple of aliens that had come to love the planet that they had grown accustomed to call home. As the impacts made the cave echo and tremble, Flash and Batman helped Diana to release Hippolyta from her chains, magical chains that drain the strength of the Amazon queen and prepare to broke the stone key that opened the Gates on the first place.

It was a solid plan, so much was true, unfortunately it was easier on the paper, as soon as Flash got to the key, the red speedster discovered that the damned thing weighted a bloody ton and he was unable to lift or even move the key; Batman tried to help his comrade but suddenly Hades unleashed a torrent of flames that forced all the League to evade before being burned to a crisp by flames that burned more than just flesh, but souls too. Raising an ancient shield, protecting her mother from the sudden onslaught of flames, Diana stood her ground, a bulwark against the fires of the Pitt of the lost souls.

The floor of the cave became an ocean of flames for a few seconds, forcing the League to retreat and climb the broken ruins that loitered the cave, forgotten buildings that have seen better days but now were slowly being destroyed by the flames of the underworld. In the middle of the ocean of fire, standing proud and terrible, Hades smiled at his triumph and exhilaration for the possibility of killing with his own hands these so-called protectors of the earth, powerful but mortals at the end of the day.

Earth was his to command, raising a heavy chunk of stone from the floor, Hades elevated himself over the waning flames and extending his hand, delivered a single command.

"Arise".

Could be the most adequate translation of what Hades was saying, a single word, yet carrying an imperative impossible to do not obey, as soon as the word abandon his lips, the flames faded, leaving a charred ground, full of cracks and craters, from where a dozen of bone hands started to grow like an unholy harvest, soon followed for the rest of the skeleton body of hundreds and hundreds of skeleton warriors.

"Crap" resumed Flash, in his inimitable style, the situation.

At the horde of undead warriors charge ahead, the League charged back, unfortunately for the skeleton warriors; when people capable of breaking the sound barrier and with the strength to pulverize cities slams against an old skeleton; the bones tend to be reduced to dust in the collision and that was exactly what happened. However, for each fallen skeleton, dozens raise from the earth covering the entire cave with their sheer numbers, overwhelming those members of the League not as invulnerable as Superman or Diana.

Diana and Hippolyta fought together, they armed with the weapons of the fallen, taking the weapons of the dead to fight them with amazon fury; if the situation would not be so tragic, both mother and daughter would be smiling widely, finally founding a common ground, fighting together not only as Amazon sister but as mother and daughter.

A red streak pass at their sides as Flash punched through the horde, punching a hundred times in a second at the impossible speeds that were his trademark; even if Flash was not stronger than a common human, his domain over his speed allowed him to punch this skeleton into dust and do not suffer any consequences beyond having to dodge another dozen of slashes from all the warriors that surrounding him. No matter how fast he was, there were thousands of relentless skeletons under the command of Hades, monsters that would not stop until their objective, the will of Hades overloaded their souls, compelled to obey all the orders of the Death God like it was their only motive in their lives.

Diana, Hippolyta, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Batman, and Superman were doing their best, facing the incoming avalanche of undead warriors with all their skills and powers, meanwhile, Hades was quite enjoying the spectacle. It has been a long time since he saw something as interesting as this. His coliseum back in Tartaro was filled to the brim with all kind of monsters and death warriors of impressive skill, but the inability to die in battle took a lot of the emotion out of the combats.

But this was something new, and Hades was enjoying it to the fullest; not only he was seeing her love Hippolyta and her daughter; Hades had the nagging sensation that the girl called Diana was his daughter, something that astonished him; fought like true and beautiful amazons, but he was seeing how god-like beings were facing against his army of undead. It was clear that not all of them were equally powerful.

The man in blue and red was strong as a bloody Hekantonkeire, the green-skinned bald man was like a ghost and hit like a cyclops, the Hermes wannabee was as fast as the gods Hades hated, and there was the one that dressed as a bat; dressing as the animal that embodies darkness, Hades didn't known if he was being worshiped or mocked with that one, but his gadgetry and fighting skill were indeed astonishing. In all, it was a very powerful bunch of mortals.

Mortals, as in people that could die, and Hades was the god of death, but perhaps it was time to act a little more ruthlessly and slain all of these mongrels before he could claim Hippolyta once again and knew better his own daughter; Diana was as beautiful as Hades could expect of the progeny of a god and an Amazon.

The first one to reach his elevated position was none other than the man in blue and red, punching him several times at great speed, even with his armor, Hades felt the power behind each of the impacts.

" _Ah, physical pain, old friend, I did miss you"_ chuckled Hades in his mind when Superman delivered a jab to his left chin and followed by an uppercut, Hades quickly kicked the chest of the flying man sending him flying against one of the stone pillar, destroying the stone and the house behind it.

Massaging his chin, Hades smiled, that mortal had quite the punch, not even when he was younger and battled along his brothers, were a lot of opponents that could hit like that, outside of the avatars of the Titans and some of the most powerful of their spawn, beast without name or legend that leave nothing behind them, but the shadow of death.

Hades next opponent was the shape-shifting green man; a shapeshifter, those were always tricky opponents, he never should low his guard battling against one of them, but alas, when Hades usually loved subtlety, this time he was for something more visual, something more visceral and direct.

Opening his mouth wide, Hades roared, and from his open mouth, a torrent of Tartaros flames erupted, forcing the green man to dodge desperately or be burned to ashes; pouring another torrent of flames against the bat costumed man and the Red speedster, Hades separated his enemies into smaller groups, allowing the undead horde of Greek warriors to surround and overwhelm all the strangely dressed individuals that seem to support his daughter efforts in sending him back to the deeps of Tartaro.

Raising another pillar of earth, one of his domains as Lord of everything that is under the earth, Hades observed the battle, noticing how the flying ones, namely Diana, the blue and red and the green thing, tried to gain some kind of upper hand to take the fight to Hades; however Hades was no fool and had already subtly moved the earth and the fire under his control to set the battlefield into his advantage, cutting short any possible reinforcements and forcing them to fight him one on one or in pairs at best.

Hades may not be the most capable fighter of Olympus, that much was for certain, Ares or even Athena in a more calculated and strategic way, were better suited for direct confrontation, of course, in terms of pure power, Hades had them trumped, after all, he was a son of Kronos, the Titan; but Hades was not all that eager in fighting head on with his enemies, after all, if you had them killed even before the battle, all for the better, resources and time that could be invested in better places. That's why Tartaro has being ruled so efficiently in the last...Hades had already lost count of the years, centuries and millennia, that he has lost putting some order in the blasted torture dimension. No one appreciated the incredible work he has been doing all this time. Well, now Hades is going to shove their hubris down their throats, starting by obliterating the mortal world.

Much to his amazement, the colored costumed mortals managed to somehow, turn the tides of the battle and push the undead, even if it was for a short time, with a cunning combination of his diverse and unique talents, like Freezing breath, speed beyond measure, ghost like abilities, and mere martial prowess; Hades had to admit that he was deeply impressed by these mortals and how resourceful they were, how they were capable of temporary put a stop to the unlimited undead troops of Tartaro; alas, it was only a temporary thing.

The flying mortal, the one with the strength of a Hekatonkeirie, was the first one to reach his position, Hades barely blocked the incoming punch and even with his divine strength, the Olympian almost feel to his knees, without pause, the man punched him in the chest, denting his armor; quite a feat in its own; and forcing him to jump backwards and skid several meters back when he landed on the floor, destroying a cohort of skeletons, on their way to the main battle.

Shacking the bone dust from his cape and armor, Hades massaged his chin and smiled at the flying man; Superman Hades believed he was called; creating a fireball, Hades toss it to Superman, who dodged it and rammed fist first against Hades, who received the impact against his armored chest and after gritting his teeth and endure the powerful punch, grab Superman by the waist and slammed him against the floor a couple of times, before releasing another wave of flames in the crater resulted of the slamming.

Hades wanted to cook the Superman alive, he was wondering if his mortal; sturdier but mortal; flesh would taste different, it has been a while since he gave Cerberus a well-deserved snack, the Hellhound has been nothing but loyal to him, and Hades rewarded loyalty, it something that did not abound at all in the Pitt.

His actions were interrupted when the red speedster; Flash; started to toss hundreds of spears at him at incredible speeds, it did nothing but interrupt him and making him cover his face with his armored hand and cape; Hade's divine flesh was more than enough sturdy to do not have to worry about any mortal weapon, but the spears Flash was using was made of Underworld metal, impossible sharp and with the quality of kill all living beings no matter origin or powers.

With a frown, a maw of stone formed under the feet of Flash, Hades frowned deeper and the maw closed crunching the red nuisance like the bug he was, however, the dammed bald green man passed through the stone like a ghost, carrying Flash with him, preventing the stony destiny of the Hermes fanboy. Hades snarled but his attention was quickly drawn back to the crater; Superman delivered a nasty uppercut to him, as the flying man exited the crater flying at high speed, augmenting the strength behind his punch.

Hades was sent flying back several meters, landing with all his armored body into a squad of skeletons; those things practically covered the entire place, more and more being drawn from the infinite hordes of Tartaro; with a snarl, Hades visage twisted in one of anger and annoyance, the Olympian god raise his hand and created a trio of stone golems, eighteen feel tall golems resembling Hades, and command them to smash the League. Hades wanted to have a word or two with Hippolyta about what on Olympus where doing men of strange powers; none of them of divine origin, Hades would have noticed the _Ichor_ in their beings; in the supposedly sacred and free of men lands of Themyscira.

The stone giants proceed to attack the League as Hades walked among his loyal undead minions, to the corner on where Hippolyta and their daughter was making a desperate last stand, Hades took some time to enjoy himself with the picture; Hippolyta was as beautiful as ever, Hades remembered quite clearly how she was in the old ages, how she was a proud amazon of unparalleled beauty and strength, that was one of the reasons why the god of Death fell in love with the amazon, her beauty matched strength inner and outer.

Although their daughter did seem to do not have fallen very far from the tree, she was as beautiful as her mother and for what Hades was seeing, she did have the immense strength of the Gods with her, strength that no Amazon could have unless she was the progeny of a higher entity; for example, certain God of Death.

Exiting from the phalanx of skeletons, Hades walked until he stood in front of the two Amazons, even if he was smirking smugly, Hades had to admit that he could not be prouder of his daughter, truly a worthy child of the Rulers of the Olympus.

"Hello, my dears," smiled Hades at the two women like a cat that had the mouse cornered and at his mercy "perhaps we should have a little family talk, there is some very important information that someone seems to forgot to inform me about." Pointed his glare at Hippolyta who defiantly stare at him back, but Hades saw the shadow of uncertainty in her eyes.

"Monster!" charged Diana, her emotions taking the best of her "get back to Tartaros were you belong!". With a mighty swing, Diana traced a deep gash over the black armor of Hades, biting her divine flesh and making him bleed before the impact sent him flying against his skeletons.

" _She does have her mother temper"_ groaned Hades as he rose from the trench of destroyed skeletons and earth that he has formed with his body as Diana managed to cut through his armor and his flesh.

"T _his is getting ridiculous"_ snorted Hades at how he has been sent flying like a rag doll several occasion by now, and each one of those occasions, he has destroyed a lot of his own undead warriors, loyal, relentless but not precisely the sturdiest of the warriors. Bone can only go so far against divine flesh and might.

Raising from the trench, Hades walked and the earth raised from the ground, creating a pillar of stone from where he could observe the battle and see his women, the gash in his armor was already recomposing itself, like it has never happened; a mere trick for beings that ruled the universe long before the man was nothing but howling monkeys.

Diana and Hippolyta took the chance to cut a bloody path in the middle of the army that separated them from the rest of the League, as said strange mortals deal with the stone golems of Hades, it took some time but at the end, they were nothing but stone, easily crack under superior strong like one of the gods or perhaps lesser beings like minotaurs and other beasts.

Hades smiled, his body and armor already healed and repaired to an immaculate state, the pain was nothing but a nuisance for him, after all the time passed in the Pitt, pain, physical or mental, was nothing but a vague memory of something that afflicted the mortals and other lesser forms of life.

As distracted as he was, nor Hades, nor his unlimited skeletons, noticed the frail and crippled form of Faust, the sorcerer who caused all this mess in the first place, and the one responsible for the petrification of the entire Amazon population of the tribe. For Hades, it was nothing but a mortal on his deathbed, exhaling the last breaths of his pitiful life, for the skeletons, it was nothing but another soon to be souls to be drag into Tartaro, already with two feet on the other side. But, everybody had forgotten that Faust was a greedy man, greedy beyond measure, he desired occult knowledge and he will get it, but when Hades betrayed him, Faust knew that he was going to die but he will not go without taking revenge.

With his last breaths, Faust chanted a spell, an unholy chant, whispered by an ancient mystic on the lakes of Stygia who dared to see beyond what any mortal should and who was punished by the gods, torturing his souls with the knowledge but the prohibition of ever sharing with anyone, only a prayer, whispered in the darkest night of the year, a chant that would reveal the truth and confine any supernatural being into the dimension it came from.

Faust pointed out his old and decrepit hand to Hades, his toothless smile taking humor in how he was going to destroy the plans of Hades, no one double crossed Faust, even if it was in the final hours of his life, the sorcerer was going to take retribution for the betrayal of a god, the peak of any sorcerer, defy the gods, although not how Faust would have liked, but as his hearth start to fail and his body started to decompose at accelerated rate, the sorcerer finished his chant and send the white ball of divine bane, directly at the back of Hades.

Distracted as he was, Hades didn't see it coming, nor he would give two thoughts about any mortal spell, his divine essence prevented that anything but the most powerful spells could dent him, not taking into consideration his own black armor; but this spell was designed by a madman, a madman with a grudge against the gods that destroyed his life and was one of the few things that could actually cause a god harm, or at last, force him back into his own dimension.

Faust was very competent sorcerer, and a very dedicated scholar of the arcane arts, however, what truly feed the spell was not his human magical power, Faust was not a homo magi, he had not born with magic, he learned it and perfect it, so his spells lacked the raw power than other practitioners of the arts could achieve, but this magic feed on emotions, dark and vengeful emotions. Of those, Faust had more than enough to adequately feed the spell and toss it at the unprotected back of Hades, who was hiding his true visage under his old appearance of a handsome Greek man in his early thirties.

The white ball find his objective and Hades suddenly feel how the spell tore apart his protections, passing through the armor he carried like it was not there and corrupting his divine flesh, breaking his control over it and revealing the horrendous visage he tried to hide, the corrupt and twisted form that the Pitt imposed over his previous handsome and attractive appearance.

Like a demon of the old tales, Hades face was more akin to a bat or a rat than any human, his red and demonic eyes and his serpent-like tongues; in the plural; lashing out of his derailed teeth, more proper to torn and rip than to actually have any semblance of utility as a mouth. Hunched, his legs like the ones of an animal and his hands were now claws under the black gauntlets of his armor, as the piece of Underworld metal adapted to the bigger and monstrous form of his wearer.

If anything, Hades had to be thankful of his nephew, Hephaestus, for forging his black armor when he became King of the Underworld; the poor crippled master artisan was one of the few gods that Hades did not hate, he was one of the few that could see beyond his own arrogance and hubris to see the truth and the logic behind his acts, but alas, the crippled artisan was always not a welcome part of the family; his own mother Hera was not so secretly ashamed of her own child; although Hades always had wondered if the father was truly Zeus.

With his new bestial appearance in the open, the rage of Hades erupted like a volcano, so far he has been keeping himself contained up to a point, with his more monstrous appearance, his previous restraints as a human was now forgotten, first of all, he burned the screaming body of Faust with a fireball erupted from his jaw; it no longer can be called a mouth; torching the old sorcerer until nothing but ashes remain, ashes that were carried by the wind into the Gates of Tartaro.

When the League saw the new figure of Hades, all of them knew that they were in deep shit, that this was not your everyday arrogant conqueror or super villain, this monster was a primordial being, that ruled the world long before any of their races would even conceive the idea of getting down the trees or out of the water.

The League knew that this was the last stand, if they fail to put Hades back into the Gates of Tartaro, the god would turn the entire planet into his own playground, obliterating humankind in spite for how the Olympians toss him into the Pitt for his betrayal during the Titanomachy.

Hippolyta was one of the few living beings that could remember those dark days, when entire pantheons were destroyed by the madness of the Titans and only the sacrifice of the proud Aesir prevented the entire fall of all the Overworld, marking the reign of the Titans over the entire creation.

Hippolyta saw Hades and her heart felt a pang of sadness and gilt; even after all the time that had passed, she, in the deepest corners of her heart, still felt the embers of the love that she once shared with the monster in front of her, even as amazon, she truly loved the god, however, now he was nothing but a rabid dog, the previous proud and charming god was a beast of vengeance and hate; and like any other rabid dog, Hippolyta promised herself that she would put him down, for the good of her people and the rest of the mortal world.

In a passing moment of nostalgia, she remembered how ironically familiar all this scene was, during the Titanomachy, when all the Pantheons prepared for the last battle of their existences, Hippolyta and her sisters, way different from what they were now after the horrors and profanations that an enraged and rabid Hercules committed on them.

During those final days of the gods, Hippolyta couldn't but remember a specific name, a short name, a single syllable, yet it carried enormous significance, one of the Scions of the Aesir, that raise from his mortal origins and reached the Overworld, achieving tremendous feats along the way, always disappearing back in the wilds before any could answer what on Zeus name had happened here.

The League charge and the amazons charged with them, decided to, at last, make Hades bleeds every single step into the mortal realm.

Superman was the one to act first, taking a deep breath and exhaling a freezing gale, shutting down all the surrounding flames in a single sweep and allowing the rest of the League to took advantage of the sudden open space to close the distance between them and Hades. Hades was the real objective, the skeleton warriors, as unlimited as they were, were little more than nuisances, ants trying to fight a tidal wave, against humanity they will be a nightmare, against the League, on the other hand, they were not so much.

Flash and J´oon took the flanks, dealing with all possible menaces that could get in the way of the three main attackers in this battle; namely Hippolyta, Diana, and Superman; covering their flanks and destroying any skeleton or another of those stone golems that from time to time Hades created to reinforce his skeletons.

Superman was the one that took point and punched Hades with all his might, just to see amazed how Hades stood his ground and just cracked the floor under him. Such a little second of distraction was exactly what Hades need to almost gut Superman in half, if it weren't for the rapid reflexes of the Kryptonian, honed after years of fighting Superpowered menaces, however, the claw did leave four nasty gashes in Superman´s chest, making him bleed.

Superman hated magic, he really hated magic, it was second place on his shit list, just under kryptonite; being practically invulnerable was one of the few things that made his job as Superman endurable, considering the hundreds of battles he had fight, how many death rays, lasers, missiles, guns and all kind of things that were thrown his way, invulnerability was a very good thing. But against magic it was squat, magic could pierce his skin; as much as anyone else; better than any other weapon in earth, that´s why he hated magic with a passion and right now, Hades was a god, so that means he was practically magic incarnate, and by following that line of thought, Superman was utterly screwed.

That is not a very common phrase in the conversation of the League.

Flying back, out of the dangerous reach of the claws, Superman shot a beam of his heat vision rays to the ground on were Hades was; seeing the power the god had over fire, Superman suspected that his heat rays would be useless against him; the already damaged stone floor cracked under the sudden trench Superman has carved, throwing Hades off-balance for a couple of seconds, time that a red blur used to punch and stab the god like a half hundred of times, leaving some nasty but superficial wounds in the flesh that was not covered by the heavy black armor.

Diana and Hippolyta switch positions with the scarlet speedster, jumping at Hades with a war cry, Diana and Hippolyta swung their weapons with all their Amazonian might, biting into the black armor of Hades until one of the blades finally managed to bite into his gray divine flesh and draw a line of golden ichor, tainted with the smell of Tartaro.

From the body of Hades, a circle of fire erupted, surrounding him like a personal tornado of torching flames, the flames were hot enough to make Diana greet her teeth and start sweating profusely, Superman and Flash being the same, however, Hippolyta took the worst of the sudden eruption and she screamed when her arms were badly burned by the fire, leaving red and black charred marks over her pristine flesh.

Diana threw her shield at Hades, hitting his rat-like chin, stunning him and forcing him to gave a couple of steps back; Flash was faster than Diana and move the Queen of the Amazons out of the reach of Hades personal tornado of flames, Diana look in anger for a second at the speedster but she soon realized that she was needed in the fray, Flash could move way faster than her, and her strength and skill was needed to force Hades back into Tartaro.

Diana and Superman charged together against the monster god, that received them with claws ready and roaring at their defiance with the knowledge of being far superior to anything they could dish to him.

Flash get Hippolyta out of the way and left her on a stone balcony on the upper sides of the cave, a place where the skeletons would have it hard to reach; not a problem for him that could simple run upside down of the walls like it was a flat surface; and before Hippolyta could blink, the man was back at her side with a white trunk with a red cross on it.

"Apologies for the rough treatment, your majesty, is your majesty or your highness?, I 'm not sure of the correct treatment" Hippolyta was still in partial shock for the supernatural burns on her flesh.

As Amazon she was not accustomed to something like this, capable of damaging her resilient skin; but the speed of the man was not only on his feet, as he was talking non-stop.

"This is medicine, allow me to apply some treatment for the burns and them bandage them to help them heal." Explained the red and yellow runner.

Hippolyta nodded and before she could even react, her forearms and fingers were bandaged and pleasantly dumb, instead of the stinging sensation that she was feeling not a second before, Flash smiled and disappeared in a blur, just to surround her a couple of times and left her with a bow and at last ten quivers full to the brim with arrows. Smiling to the red blur, Hippolyta took the bow and gritted her teeth.

J´oon phased through one of the golems and punched his head off, before smashing the broken neck part and breaking the entire chest piece into gravel, the green inhabitant of mars look around, seeing that the League was already doing a great job containing the undead menace and trying to push back Hades into the Gates.

" _Friends, the skeletons are raising from the ground again"_ informed to all of them telepathically " _there are no more golems for the moment, Hades cannot concentrate enough for creating more, but I can not enter into his mind, it's too strong for me"._

" _Keep distracting him"_ replied Batman " _I already have the key recomposed, as soon as I end it, I will need any super strong member to smash it into the lock and twirl it into the locking position, closing the Gates for good"._

" _Didn't we need to punch Hades inside too?" asked Flash "if we left the main honcho at this side of the Underworld, would not be it for naught then?"._

" _As the Gates closed, Hades would be forced into the Gates"_ explained Batman " _as the legend goes, Hades Must be into the Underworld, the gods had not freed him from his punishment, so he would be sent back"._

With the plans already in motion, Flash started to run around all the place, refilling the quivers of Hippolyta, covering the flanks of his team, and providing distractions to the fireballs that Hades throw around from time to time. Flash was fast, fastest there is, however, fast doesn't mean invulnerable; he knew that he could outrun Hades with his eyes closed, but causing the god harm was a little out of his reach; back in Central City, he already dealt with all kind of incredible resilient villains, he learned the hard way that his speed means nothing if he had to punch a steel wall at Match one.

Punching Hades at his top speed could mean that he would squash himself against the god, the hardness of the armor or his monstrous skin was something that can not be measured; if he was some kind of robot or have a steel-like skin for example.

Flash could have punched it at sonic speeds or pick up a spear and pierce him at Mach 1 or 2, unfortunately, Flash; even if he didn't act like it most of the time; was a scientific mind, and had already calculated that if Supermans mountain crushing punches could not break the armor or put Hades down, unless he decided to act against all his principles and morals and ram a spear between Hades eyes at Mach 7, anything he could come up with was pretty much useless.

So, Flash and J´oon were voluntarily relegated to support roles, not that they complain, J´oon knew that the flames of Hades could have caused him severely harm, especially with his Martian weakness to fire, and Flash knew that his attacks were useless against the preternaturally resilient skin and black armor of Hades.

The main battle was between Superman, Wonder woman, and Hades, truly a battle of the ages, between the Amazon, the god and the alien who has been compared more than once with the gods.

Wonder woman drew the first blood, when she rammed the edge of her shield against Hades rat like mouth, breaking a few teeth and forcing Hades to his knees by sheer brute force, Hades counterattacked with a vicious swipe to the legs, that Diana dodged floating over it, but she couldn't dodge it entirely and received a deep scratch that pierced her enchanted boots and drew blood from her shin.

Superman rammed with both fists the back of Hades, slamming him against the wall of the crater where the three of them have been fighting since the beginning of his personal battle, creating another hole in the floor of several meters wide, once Hades was down, Superman keep punching the floored god, each punch shattered the earth, cracking all the surface like a meteor has fallen on it.

But it wasn't enough, Hades gritted his teeth and created hands from the surrounding stone, grabbing Superman and keep him still long enough for Hades to get back on his fist and hit Superman with enough force to almost broke his chin and send him flying against the opposite wall, stunning the Kryptonian for a couple of seconds.

Before Hades could rip Superman throat in a savage charge, Wonder woman stabbed him in the leg and bashed him with the round surface of her shield, Hades gave him a couple of steps back and grabbing the shield of Diana, he practically ripped it out of her hand; she let it go before Hades could drag her with it and catch her off balance, disembowel her with his free claw, claw that already had fine traces of both Wonder woman and Supermans blood.

Superman joined the battle again and the impacts send shock waves all over the underground city, creating cracks, breaking buildings and forming craters each time their fist collided or Hades claw fail and torn the earth apart.

Form her position in the upper parts of the city, Hippolyta keep sending volley after volley of arrows at the horde of Undead, trying to give the bat suited man all the time he could need to recreate the key as best as he could and finally closing the Gates, however, as she was one of the privileged witnesses of the battle, Hippolyta couldn't but compare how terrible similar was to a battle she witnessed during the Titanomachy, a battle that took the live of one of her best friends and what unleashed a beast that even today; each time she remembered the rage and the sadness in his roar; make them shiver in fright at the memory.

The Titanomachy took the lives of a lot of Pantheons, the Titans reap a terrible harvest that day, killing dozens of gods and practically obliterating entire Pantheons, but at the end of the days came closer, the Titans realized that they were mortal too; that they could be destroyed, much as Yimir when Odin killed the Ice primordial.

On a corner of her mind, Hippolyta smirked, the fires that were burning the city to the ground were something that reminded her of someone that in the past fought at her side. One of the few men that the Amazons ever respected, and she was calling him man because he was born as one, but as the _Ichor_ of the Aesir grow stronger in his veins, he started to be less and less man and more and more the Avatar of the name that he carried with honor and pride.

" _Oh, Dýr, the Norse Dragon, the Stalwart protector of Elysium"_ humorlessly prayer Hippolyta to the man that once stood at the side of the Amazons, laughing at the Ragnarok like it was the best party in the world _"I really could use your help now, listening to your roar once again, making our enemies flinch at the sound of a primordial predator"._

Hippolyta, despite all her years as Queen of Amazons, was not a Scion, so, she did not comprehend exactly what she had done or what has she just unleashed to the world, praying to a name that has not been pronounced in the surface of the earth, since the Titanomachy, a name that carries a meaning, a name ironic as it could be, and carried with honor over all the Overworld.

Suddenly the cave trembled with the fierceness of the combat between Wonder woman, Superman and Hades, with a massive geyser of flames, Hades kicked out of the crater the two superheroes, both showing wounds and burns all over their flesh, in those points were the claws of Hades and his constant emanations of fire had surpassed their inhumane resistance, one form her divine heritage and the other from his alien resilient skin.

When Hades jumped out of the crater it was clear that he has not walked out of the battle without receiving some serious hits, one of his eyes was closed and swollen, he had lost several of his twisted teeth and his armor was showing a lot of cuts and dents all over his surface, along the broken mail that covered his arms and legs.

No doubt, this was one of the hardest battles of the League so far, few of their enemies had been capable of putting them against the ropes this way, although, it was god, what they are facing, one of the mayor powers of the Olympian mythology, a being that in the past was able to fight along his brothers Zeus and Poseidon to put down a Titan, one of the primordial beings of the creation, if one had to pay attention to their version of how the world was made and how it works.

Hippolyta saw the state of her daughter, her armor already showing several damages and dents; one of the wings of the golden eagle of the breastplate was torn and dented; along with several bruises over her immaculate skin and a swollen lip. The Queen of the Amazon snarled in fury for how Hades was damaging her daughter, exiled or not, Hippolyta loved Diana deeply and any mother who saw her children like this would no doubt be angered to the extreme.

Taking three arrows with one hand, Hippolyta coldly take aim with the three arrows tensing the string of the bow to its limits, making the string and the wood of bow creak and tense nearly the breaking point, before she observed Hades, and when the god was about to lounge at the flying red caped man and Hippolyta's daughter, she released the arrows, letting them fly at inhumane speeds against their target.

Hippolyta may have been Queen of the Amazons for a long time, rusting her combats skills a little with all the government duties, but rust doesn't mean that she had forgotten how to fight, and for being Queen of the Amazons, she had to the be the perfect warrior for her people.

Flash almost trip when he got in the trajectory of the arrows, barely dodging them and recovering the position before running against a bunch of skeletons that were tried to flank Batman and stomp them to dust in the blink of an eye. Superman moved his head to the side when he eared the whistle of the arrows and Diana duck and cover behind her shield, fighting instincts answering to the sound of an arrow being shot at your direction.

The arrows hit their target perfectly and Hades roared in pain when the tips of the three arrows pierced through the cracks of his armor and one of them find its way into one of his bloody eyes, destroying it in a burst of blood some foul liquid that contained the ocular globe.

Trashing with the arrow in his eye, Hades give a couple of steps back, breaking the arrow and taking the Tartaros steel tip out of his busted eye, just in time to see a punch coming his way and sending him flying like a meteorite against the other side of the city, destroying buildings and lots of his own skeletal minions in the way.

Superman flexed his fist, even if he has punched Hades with all his might, the god was already kicking the rubble where he had buried him. The jaw of Hades looks dislocated, hanging from his horrid mouth by a broken muscle and some bloody cartilage, however, Superman saw in the remaining eye of Hades, that this has done nothing but begun.

Suddenly Hades snapped his jaw back into his place; with a sickening and wet crunch like sound, and stood tall and prideful over a new pillar of stone that formed at his feet, he stared directly at Hippolyta, who shot another set of arrows at him, just for the arrows to be vaporized in a burst of flames.

"That has been incredibly rude, my love" chuckled Hades who raise a hand and before Hippolyta could react, she was trapped into a massive fist made of earth, that quickly grew into another of the giant stone doppelgangers of Hades, in his human appearance.

Superman and Wonder woman were ready to fly and rescue the Queen of the Amazons, who was trapped in the fist of the golem and the stone construct was clenching her, making her grit her teeth. But Hippolyta would not scream, she will not give that satisfaction to Hades.

Even if the League wanted to help Hippolyta, this new stone golem was of a superior kind, different from the usual they had seen and defeated already, taken by surprise for the sudden increase in speed and dexterity of the living statue, they have soon slapped away like annoying flies. The stone monster soon rush to reunite with his creator, ignoring the punches of J´oon and the damages Flash was doing over its legs. Unfortunately, the Golem endured enough damage to deliver Hippolyta to Hades.

The god kept Hippolyta firmly grabbed by the wrist, and even if Hippolyta did her best to resist with all her might, her kicks were not strong enough to damage the armor of Hades, neither the gray, monstrous, skin that appeared in the broken spots of the armor.

Hades laughed at the resistance of Hippolyta and with a strong squeeze, broke the wrist of the woman, making her hiss in pain. The sound of her mother hissing like that, and the crunching sound of the wrist bones being broken, made Wonder woman snap and with a savage war cry fly at top speed at Hades.

"I need someone strong enough to twist the key, now!" shouted Batman, with the stone key of Tartarus already lock into position, and only needing someone strong enough to twist the stone cogs into the locking position, trapping Hades into Tartaro once again.

Batman would have asked mentally, but with the link broken for the difficulties of J´oon to concentrate on the blazing inferno that covered the underground city, he had to shout into the communicators.

Superman was the one that was about to fly into the call, but from the stone rubble of the golem, dozens of little copies of Hades rose from the broken rubble, grabbing him with surprising strength and managing to stale him; next in line was J´oon.

J´oon saw the difficulties Superman was having and transformed several times, into different forms, leaving a destructive path among the skeleton warriors and the few remaining golems, but when he was about to reach the position, a wall of flames surrounded him, making him scream as his entire body suffered from the heat of the flames.

Flash saw it and starting to twirl, forming a tornado shape that took the flames and sent them over another batch of skeleton minions, under his red suit, Flash was sweating oceans, already noticing the drain of all the tricks that he has done with his powers, with a metabolism like his, he burns calories like a furnace and that means that he was already running on fumes.

With a final push, Flash made a beeline to pick up J´oon and Hippolyta, as Hades was distracted by the wall of flames that has disappeared in front of his eyes, and mode them out of danger into an upper echelon of the city, where neither the flames nor the skeletons had managed to reach yet, as soon as he stopped.

Flash almost fell forward, breathing in ragged breaths and feeling how his entire body was burning from the effort, this was one of the times that he has taken his speed to the limit and the trick with the flame catcher tornado was something pick up on the spot. He really should have thought twice before pulling it out of his scarlet sleeve.

Batman gritted his teeth and tried to move the key by himself, he was a very strong human, and he was in perfect physical shape but this key was not only a four hundred pounds slab of stone but it was hardly clicking into place. Wonder woman appeared at his side, adding her superhuman strength to Batmans and easily pushing the heavy key with a loud screech and a clacking echo.

The Gates started to close, if Hades was not on the other side of them when the doors closed, he would lose practically all his divine powers, being nothing but a horrid monster, until he will be slain and his soul and essence be sent back to Tartaro where he should be until the rest of the Olympians free him from the punishment of dealing with the souls of the damned.

Raising his claws, Hades summoned his entire horde, the ones that were left when the key closed the flow of power and cut short the infinite horde of Hades, but they were more than enough to deal with those annoyances, not to mention how he was going to enjoy tearing apart the black-caped bastard that fixed the key; all in front of the eyes of Diana, so she would remember the consequences of his actions.

The earth moved under his feet, moving Hades into the position where Diana and his bat costumed friend, eclipsing them under his visage, the heat that emanated from his form was enough to make the black uniform of the man sizzle and provoke him bad burns under that thick clothes.

Diana took a sword from the remnants of the battle and took a position at the side of the man, who pick up some of his bat like throwing knives and prepared for their last stand.

Hades laughed at their faces.

"Children of man, foolish whelp of Hippolyta, are you really even thinking about trying to put a resistance?" mocked Hades slapping Batman into a wall, faster than he could even see, and grabbing the wounded Diana by the neck, he slammed her against the floor a couple of times, with enough force to shatter the stone and possibly breaking some ribs of the girl.

"You have to learn your place, my child" chuckled Hades, slowly licking the check of Diana who gritted her teeth in revulsion and rage.

Batman, with a busted jaw and with a severe concussion on his skull; If it wasn't for the superb craft and hardness of his armor his brain would be splattering the wall; lifted himself from the ground, doing the impossible to ignore the pain and the dizziness and slowly, painfully, taking aim with another Batarang from his belt.

If he was accurate enough, he could free Diana from the clutches of Hades and she could punch the bastard back into the Gates, it was nothing but a hopeful thought, but Batman would never surrender, a man like him didn't know how to surrender, was not in his nature.

The League couldn't but observe with horror in their eyes, how Hades beat the shit out of Diana, like a mad dog with a chew plushy, Hades hit Diana with cruel intention, taking advantage of the weakening of her armor, hitting her against the floor, inflicting bludgeoning damage over her already bruised bones.

Hippolyta's rage and worry battle on her eyes, as she could but contemplate impotently, how the man he once loved, know torture the beautiful creature they sculpted together.

The desperation of a mother, the emotions that run rampant inside her heart, made her call for help; calling with all her heart; this time with all the might of a desperate, true plea, praying for the salvation of someone that was more valuable for her than her own life.

Few can understand that source of strength that, that kind of emotions and desires carries, it was a cruel world, where few people do worry about their kin; but this was different, if one can be sure of something, is the desire of a mother to protect his progeny and right now, Hippolyta would have sacrificed her own immortal soul without even blink, in exchange for the salvation of her loved daughter.

It all happened in a blink; in a moment, Hades had Diana by her neck, ready to disfigure her for all the eternity with his claws, before he fried the rest of the League in his flames, and the next moment he was into a crater, with a claw the size of a trailer crushing his chest and armor until it started to violently crack.

The claw was connected to some kind of limb made of what looks like volcanic stone crisscrossed with veins of gold, that has erupted from the Gates of Tartaro, where another couple of said claws were preventing the Gates from closing. Itself, it was quite the feat, it was needed a strength the caliber of Hercules to stop the heavy Gates from closing.

Hades hurt the claw that was crushing him and roll out of the fire that spilled from the gashed that he had made on the strange appendage. Hades had recognized the new challenger to this little royal rumble that he has been playing with Hippolyta and the strange friends of their daughter, and Hades feel that he was in for a battle the caliber of the ones that he fought in the first days of the creation, when he stood alongside his brothers against his father Kronos.

Gods were about to collide, both hating each other guts deeply and both of them, with an ax to grind for the injuries and offenses that they inflicted on each other, the day of the Titanomachy.

The wounded claw retreated into Tartaro, as the rest of the body that the claws that hold the doors started to sip past the threshold of the Gates, and when it finally crossed to the other side, the form, the Beast with Capital letters that crossed the portal of the Greek Underworld.

It defied all description, it was…

Golden.

It was big, it was blazing with the heat of the sun, it carries indomitable power, it was frightening to an instinctual level, it was dangerous, it was majestic, it was glorious, it was divine, it was overwhelming, it was something that made all the witness recognize that they were in front of a primordial beast, it was a being that hunted in the dawn of the world, it was an apex predator, it was unstoppable, it was relentless, it was ruthless, it was impossible and all the mortals in the first, buried, city of the amazons cowered in the presence of the Beast that stalked the world when it was still in the crib.

The Beast.

The incarnation of the animal life of the planet, shaped into a golden dragon that flows impossibly elegantly, walking on his fours outside of the Pitt of the Lost Souls, carrying an aura of power that made a very human shiver run up the spine of Hades.

The golden dragon roared in challenge, shacking the entire city and deafening practically all the witnesses of his entrance into the World, the land of the mortals, that the Beast has not set a foot into since the Titanomachy.

And boy he was pissed off about that.

"Hades" if there was something that could be more frightening, it was the coldness and cruelty that the voice, that escaped from the flaming jaw of the dragon, carried with each of the letters of the name of the god of the death of the Greek mythology.

"Dýr" recognized Hades the dragon that stood in front of him, as Hades stood on his own two feet, getting out of the crater that the dragon almost buried him into, over a raising pillar of black stone on where several skeletons and fossil appeared to embed on it.

Hippolyta gasped, of course she should have recognized the dragon!, one of the aspects that represented the legend and powers of Dýr, his friend and ally, a man that even received the blessings of Hera for his unbreakable vows to his wife, until the second Fafnir, the fake golden dragon, killed her in battle as she and Dýr defended the ancient lands of Zambezi from the unquenchable thirst of gold of the dragon.

Fluttering, like the wings of a butterfly, hope started to rise in the heart of Hippolyta, like the gold that shined over the surface of the glorious dragon, there was a light in the darkness, a chance to win the day; for the first time in eons, Hippolyta prayed, prayed with all her heart to another deity, a deity not from Olympus, but from the dark and cold North, one of the children of Yggdrasil.

"Dýr" she called with a smile, ignoring the pain in her wrist, trying to convey her feeling of hope and asking for the help of her old friend "Dragon-God of Asgard, King of beasts, Lord of gold, I beseech you, hear my prayer, let those that cause us wergeld pay the price for their hubris".

The dragon raised his head, turning his molten golden orbs, still burning with inner power, to the place where Hippolyta and most of the League was regrouping, Superman and Wonder woman included, taking advantage of the momentary pause that has provoked the appearance of the massive, golden, dragon.

A soft touch, a warm tingle in her head, and Hippolyta smiled widely, at the comforting presence of her old friend and the message that it conveyed.

" _Greetings, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, its good to see you again, old friend"._

The dragon shrunk, collapsing unto himself until only left a lone figure standing in the middle of the crater that the crushing presence of the dragon left on the grounds of the buried Themyscira, greatly losing the aura of overwhelming power that the dragon exuded, until the figure rise from his kneeling position, and exactly like it happened with Hades, the presence of the newcomer, covered the entire underground city, in blanket of power that shocked the League and in lesser measure Hades.

The figure standing in the shadow of the dragon, was a giant of eight feet, his powerful body looks like a mix of volcanic, black, stone, his veins were pure, warming, glowing gold, dressed in a sleeveless tunic of black cloth with a Yggdrasil sewed in red and gold threads, black pants and black boots with gold toes; his head was covered with a Norse blackish steel helmet, crafted to resembling a dragon head and protecting the back of his neck with a dense chain mail.

His nails were claws, his teeth were vicious fangs, covering the glow of a furnace in the back of his throat, his eyes were two reptilian eyes that glowed with the soft orange of fresh lava, his entire body was crafted with one single purpose. An unstoppable mass of power that would not be denied.

Dýr, Dragon-God, proud son of Asgard, scion of Odin the All-father, stepped into the World once more.

Hades and Dýr stare at each other. Both recognize the threat that the other represented, not to mention how none of them has ever forgiven the other.

Hades felt that Dýr was one of the main responsible of the defeat of the Titans at the battles of the Titanomachy, that if it wasn't for him and his allies and the bands of Scions that he summoned to the battlefield the days of the Ragnarok, when he faced Surtur himself and held the Titan of Fire at bay.

The Titans would have won the day, and all the Paradise that Hades has carefully planned and envisioned would have happened, bringing a new era of prosperity and perfection to both the Overworld and the World.

Dýr, on the other hand, had another kind of grudges to settle with the god of death. At the end of the Ragnarok, practically the entire Aesir pantheon was destroyed, even those that were fated to survive to the end of the days had fallen under the absolute chaos that was the death of the Titans, entire pillars of the reality fall and with each fall, the rules that created reality as it was known, disappeared with them.

Dýr was wounded, weakened and frankly, on his last leg, when the battle was over and the day belonged to the Gods of the Overworld Pantheons, unfortunately, as Hades was judged guilty and thrown into the deeps of Tartaro, the god of the death managed to drag Dýr with him, chaining him to the roots of the Pitts and torturing him for eons.

Mostly for vengeance and with hopes of putting his hands on Andavaranaut, the cursed ring of Andvari, the brother of the first Fafnir.

Hades changed back into his more human appearance, his armor repaired itself and his cape and spikes grow back like nothing happened, all bruises and wounds erased from his visage; the god of the death at least could respect a worthy enemy.

"I claim wergeld Hades" snarled and shouted the dragon man at the same time, in a mix of human and animal-like voices "prepare yourself, oath-breaker".

The air of the underground city grow heavy for a second before a deafening sound makes the witness cringe and cover their ears, it was akin to the sound of the burners of a jet-fighter opening were at full speed and overheating. The heat wave hit the witness like a shock wave, vaporizing the sweat that covered their bodies, Hippolyta gladly received the heat, it means something completely different for her, it means that Hades was going to burn, literally.

Enveloped in an aura of white and golden fire, his entire body shinning in a metallic tone, Dýr gave a step forward and the earth crumbled at his passing, cracking loudly and violently like a bomb has just landed on the spot that Dýr has put a foot on.

Hades crouched and without any bantering or smug commentaries, he prepared for the attack; from Hades perspective, it was good that the Norse bastard didn't have his weapons, the tools that form part of his legend, his skeggox bit as hard as the fangs of Typhon.

Unfortunately, Hades knew that Dýr was never unharmed, as soon as he gave the first step forward, Dýr extended his hands and from the flames that surrounded him, two swords materialized in his hands, typical Norse craft, solid and double-edged with capability to slash, stab and parry in equal measure and long enough to be able to quickly maneuver with them into defense or offense.

Hades barely parried the first strike; a twin, upside down, strike with both weapons that would have cut Hades arms cleanly if he had not parried it with the spikes of his gauntlets; but the strength of the attack forced him to feel to his knees, gritting his teeth; as always, this Nordmanni bastard was as strong as Hades remembered him, an unstoppable juggernaut of indomitable will.

With a supreme effort, Hades pushed the swords back and then started his own counter-attack, with a feint to the face followed by a claw to the side, seeking to disembowel his opponent; Hades knew that Dýr could regenerate as fast as him, but even divine healing had its limits, especially when the damages were inflicted by the cruel and Tartaros steel made claws of Hades gauntlets.

However, the feint was easily called and dodged by Dýr, who started his own series of quick and devastating attacks, each one of them would have easily dispatched any opponent in his way, with crippling or lethal wounds to limbs, vital organs and bleeding and painful wounds.

Batman, Diana, and Hippolyta, possible the most knowledge in Earths martial arts and methods of combat, were frankly astonished at the display of martial prowess that the contenders were displaying, their forms were flawless, although they carried the mark of the culture they hail from.

Hades fought like an ancient Greek, solid in his defense and ready to pierce or stab any opening he can found, Dýr on the other hand, was a relentless juggernaut that hammered the defenses of Hades, forcing him to be always in the offensive and never allowing him any chance to counter-attack. Still, the one that was more surprised for the style of the combat of Dýr would be J´oon.

It was similar, yet different enough, to the Manhunter martial arts that he learned when he was training as Manhunter, back in his younger days, where he was a young martian in the red fields of Mars.

It was not exactly the same, but J´oon could easily discern the patterns of a fellow shapeshifter, the movements that lead to sudden attacks from tails that were not there before, stings, claws, pincers or constricting coils of muscle that would restrain the objectives or broke their bones by pressure.

However, in the case of Dýr, there was something different; the differences seems to be the part of the lethality of his attacks, contrary to the Manhunter arts, Dýr was all about killing strikes, like the hammer of an angry god, each one of the strikes he threw at Hades was outright lethal; killing strikes at their best, all violent and brutal, capable of reducing an opponent into a bloody mess in a second.

Somehow, it was terrifyingly fitting, for a Norse god, for a god that embodies a dragon, to have a ruthless fighting style whose objective was to turn his enemies to shred by precise but devastating strikes, much like an apex predator would do, a mix of animal cunning and unstoppable strength.

For the most well-versed minds of the League; in the topic of ancient history; namely, Wonder woman and Batman, there was no doubt that Dýr was representing perfectly, the fame that the Viking raiders had in all the world. Unstoppable, violent and powerful, killing machines covered in animal power that stops at nothing in their path.

The problem was, what was going to do Dýr once the battle was over?.

Although Diana has to admit that it was the first time that her mother has spoken of a man in such friendly terms, her voice carried warm and hope, like the dragon-Viking, was a good friend of the past; considering the centuries that the Queen had on her shoulders, it was not entirely impossible.

Diana always knew that her mother was older than she looks, it was part of the blessings of the goddess of the Amazons; long life and perfect physical appearance unless a war comes their way and claimed their lives.

Perhaps, this dragon-god was one of the older and forgotten gods of the bygone era before the Titanomachy, where the surviving pantheons did their best to put back together, what was left of the universe.

The battle between the gods got even more dangerous as they started to unleash more and more of their divine power in each strike, from charging their weapons and claws with fire, to suddenly create maws out of nothing or spikes erupting from the ground, aiming to impale their victim.

And in the middle of the display of elemental and transformation powers, Dýr and Hades, keep fighting each other, with their killing intent flaring like beacons; there was no mistake for the witnesses, that both gods were trying to kill each other, their desire to destroy their enemy was overwhelming.

But there was something odd in the battle, there is no doubt that both wanted their opponent reduced to mincemeat but surprisingly, it was Hades the one that exuded hate in almost a physical manner.

The Norse dragon god, even if he was a living, walking, mass of fire that melted even the armor of Hades, fought in a cold, efficient and ruthless way; it was like seeing a mix of the warrior discipline of Wonder woman, the shape-shifting abilities of J´oon, the strength of Superman and the merciless attitude of Batman, all in one single and terrible package.

And now that they were observing it, for a monster the size of a little house, the Norse god was agile and swift, reacting at speeds that made Flash whistle as he lost track of the sudden strikes that the dragon deity smashed against the armor of Hades, frankly, the only thing that has prevented the Olympian from being disemboweled.

But Hades was dishing a lot of damage too, his horrid black claws were more than enough to left deep and bleeding wounds and gashes all over the body of the dragon god, making him bleed a golden lava-like blood, that fall to the ground in big puddles.

Curiously, not even their blood was capable of mixing, as when the lava-like blood, meet the black Ichor of Hades blood, they fizzle and react in a very violent and explosive manner. They were truly determined to kill each other, even at a genetic level, such determination was to admire, at a very, very far distance, of course.

Soon the battle grew even more violent, as each of their strikes provoked shock waves and thunderous booms all over the already more than cracked up floor and roof of the cave; the place was already on its way to the total collapse, frankly, it was a miracle that it has stood up for so long, after how beings capable of level mountains has been exchanging punches like it were candies.

It was not really so different from a normal job day for most of the League, especially Superman and Wonder woman, who was among the strongest beings on earth, but even for them, it was clear that both Dýr and Hades were a League on their own.

True gods beating the crap of each other, if the situation was not so desperate, it would be quite the show; an exercise in humbleness for the strongest beings of the League, how there was always an apex in each food chain, and sometimes, you are not one of them.

It was soon reaching the point on where they really should think about getting out of there, before the place collapsed and buried him under tons of rubble; there were some members of the League for what being under an avalanche was nothing but a nuisance, but considering the quantity of stone that was going to fall upon their heads, it was never a pleasant experience, not to mention that not all of them were immune to being buried alive under several tons of hard stone. Opting for the tactical retreat, most of the League got out of the buried city, remaining only Wonder woman and Superman; two of the ones capable of surviving the city collapse; as witnesses to the end of the battle between Hades and Dýr and ready to finally close the Gates, whoever was the final winner of the battle.

Watching the clash of the gods was an enlightening experience for both of them, not only in the sense of the martial prowess that both gods were displaying, an incredible and dangerous display of opposite styles that would be amazing to watch in other circumstances, but for the display of capabilities that Superman was eying in both gods.

Hades was capable of controlling earth, fire, raising entire army of skeletons, the golems, the claws of his armor; somehow, it was not all that the League was expecting, even Wonder woman did not know what are the entire array of powers of Hades, but as one of the oldest and most powerful gods of Olympus, she was sure that it would be nothing to scoff at, just the scars that both she and Superman had in their bodies for the last combat, was more than enough to demonstrate their point.

Dýr, on the other hand, has shown similar capabilities of controlling fire and earth, but he had domain over the animals instead of death and he has shown the skill to create ice from nothing; at some point on the battle where he tried to freeze the gauntlet of Hades, in order to make it brittle and crack it and; if what Superman was suspecting was true; Dýr was physically stronger than Hades, his impacts forced the Olympian god to be on the defensive most of the time, on the other hand, Hades was not a pushover but he was not able to deflect the attacks, but parry or block them, and each time, the crater under them went deeper.

At this rate they are going to build a tunnel to china, or what would be worst, create a fissure in the land where Themyscira was standing and provoke an earthquake that would sink the island, not precisely the best outcome of the events that had taken place in the first and buried city of the Amazons, not to mention that the death of the entire amazon population would kill Diana and Hippolyta too, incapable of dealing with the gilt that they could have done something to prevent it, that it was their fault.

Fortunately, such a sad event would never happen; it could have happened, but it was not going to happen, at last, not under Dýr watch.

For the old Norse god, this was a battle that he was ill prepared for, he had none of his relics; the symbols that the myths put on him. Mjolnir for Thor, Bow for Artemis, The Smoking Mirror, The Ankh of Ra; those sacred symbols and tools that were deeply bounded to his legend were not with him, before Hades could drag him to Tartarus, to the Underworld, he dispersed them into the newborn lands, hiding in spots where he would found them later, when he would finally free himself from the chains of the Pitt.

It was a good thing he was a full-fledged god, otherwise he would have been in a very dire situation when the chains that hold him weakened and Hippolyta called for him, allowing him to escape from his prison and materialize in a sense, at the other side of the Gates, slamming Hades against the floor in the process. A sign that he was not at one hundred percent, was the fact that Hades had survived the claw attacks, if Dýr was at the peak of his power, even Hades would be nothing but a smear in the floor.

The Olympian was forced as Dýr to take a more, environmentally friendly form, otherwise, his _Ichor_ would have started to twist the surrounding space, as the World was not prepared for the overwhelming power of the pure _Ichor_ of a true god, released at full throttle, frankly, Dýr was astonished that his poor mockery of the true Avatar of the Beast has not been violently rejected by this new and strange world, whose rules were incredibly different from what Dýr remembered and respected.

Uh, Ragnarok did a number on everything, well, it was among the expectations that the All-father had at the end, that there was no way to scape Fate, unless you fulfill it, your way, bashing the armies of all the Titans, instead of focusing on the prophecies of the Ragnarok was something that left even the Norns dumbfounded; it was such a suicide and reckless move that it had to work, and in a sense, it did work, Ragnarok happened, but in a different manner than it should, provoking a universal reset of sorts.

This was not his era, this was not his world, yet, there was something in all this place that echoed with Dýr in a sense that he could not understand, yet; if there was something that he was proud of, it was he was far from being a simple minded brute, like most of the rest of the Pantheons like to point the Aesir as; he was not like that, after all, he was the son of Grimnir or, more commonly known as Odin, the All-father of Asgard.

Being cunning and ruthless was the mark of the real northern warriors, otherwise, if they were the fool knuckleheads that the rest of the gods believe they were, they would have died eons ago, killed by their own idiocy...like the Atlantean pantheon, the inhabitants of Atlantis fell in a spiral of corruption, until they were nothing but twisted and demented parodies of the gods they were once. That didn't make them less dangerous, just way uglier than your every day Titan-spawn, and that's saying a lot.

Dýr and Hades continue battling, one with flaming weapons and the other with his black metal claws, capable of piercing and gashing the black and volcanic-like skin of Dýr, sending trails of golden lava to the ground, soon followed by the own black and toxic blood of Hades when the blazing swords of Dýr found a weak spot on his armor or nicked the few exposed skin patches of the Olympian god.

If it wasn't for the armor of Hades, Dýr would have already disemboweled him thrice, but without his weapon, the armor of Hades was stronger than his claws or fire born weapons; perhaps if he could have time, could have crafted an adequate weapon, but there was little time for anything that was not keeping Hades on his toes.

Never underestimate the craftiness and wits of the Olympian god of the Underworld, despite all his flaws, he was a bastard of the first order and one of the strongest gods there is, in this new and odd universe.

Speaking about it, Dýr was a bit flabbergasted about what he was sensing, as one that has reached the pinnacle of power of a purview of the reality more than once, Dýr was capable of perceiving the World in ways that few could imitate, much less understand; although if the flying red cape man was the norm, perhaps this World was completely different, and much more friendly to the gods.

In resume, you are cursed to live interesting times, no matter how much you tried to run from them, Dýr knew from experience, he learned that harsh lesson at heart, when he tried to run from his responsibilities and duties as Aesir and just have a century or so of peace along his first divine wife, the beautiful Muroro, the daughter of Makoma the Great.

They established their home at the mountain that Makoma and Sakaterina used for their fateful fight, before they ascended to godhood, but alas, Dýr fate followed him and Fafnir; the real dragon, not the svartalfar imposter that stole the ring of Andivaris corpse; attacked the mountain, looking for the treasures that the followers of Makoma and Sakaterina deposited there as offering for those same gods.

Dýr almost perished in the battle, as Fafnir was way stronger than him at that point, but Muroro perished when Fafnir killed her, crushing her body to bits in his jaws, nothing remained of her body, torn and vaporized by the breath and fangs of the Golden Dragon.

Nothing was left for the mourning, at last, Dýr managed to ask a favor to Freya and make one of her Valkyries, pick up Muroro and brought her back to Folkvangr, the battlefield was Freya kept her half of the warriors chosen by the Valkyries; Dýr would only need to achieve godhood and he would be able to reunite with her there.

But when he cleaved a path in the three Worlds, the Overworld, the Underworld and the World, his deeds and achievements slowly started to change his legends and myths into something different from what he was at the beginning. Dýr, the Lord of the Wild Hunt, turned into Dýr Dragon-god of Asgard, as his chasing of Fafnir and constants battles against the progeny of the twisted dragon, made him the slowly turning into the figure that replaced the Golden Dragon Fafnir.

Fate was like that, it has little time or sense of humor and just acts like the hell it wanted, and so far no even the wisest of the gods has been able to understand half a shit about what, in Yggdrasils name, was what the Fate truly wanted or expected.

That was the reason why practically all the gods of all Pantheons did not step at full power into the World, frankly, their legends have been interpreted and visualized in so many and convoluted ways that as soon as they made themselves know, the Fatebounds of the entire mortal and supernatural society would fall on them, turning them into unrecognizable forms of themselves.

But there was always a catch, this only happens when the gods are at full power, with their _Ichor_ resonating with the very essence of the reality, however, when the gods dress themselves in alternate, less powerful and recognizable forms, they could walk the World without fear of repercussion and make more Scions that could join the battle against the Titans.

Such was the origin of practically all the Scions of the world, their divine progenitor; be it a god or a goddess; took mortal form and have progeny with a mortal, sometimes helping the child grew and in others left it to the mortal parent, until the Scion has grown enough and could receive the _Visitation_ of his divine progenitor and understand what they were and what was going on really in the World.

Dýr happened to be the son of Odin the All-father of Asgard and a powerful priestess of the Nordmanni people, they stood with him until he was old enough to hold a sword and kill his first enemy, leaving him to grow by himself and finally become a Scion.

If we use the Christian calendar and took into consideration the events of the original world of Dýr, his awakening as Scion, would be somewhere around the -100BC, after that, it was just grown in power a became a demigod that was turned into the Dragon-god of Asgard and had to retire himself into the Overworld, where he remained, happy with Muroro and their children, never abandoning them, his instincts as Dragon-god told him to never abandon his brood, becoming the Golden Bulwark of Asgard and battling along all kind of Pantheons before Ragnarok came and he faced Surtur himself in battle, stalling him long enough to send the entire prophecy of the Ragnarok to kingdom come and after the Titans fall and a lot of them were assassinated, making the entire fabric of reality toss its papers over the should and go for a very needed drink.

Now, he was in a totally different land, a place that he had zero knowledge of what was going around here, but a friend, a very dear ally of the of times has called his name, had called his help, praying in his name and making him scape from the Pitts of Tartarus where he was chained like a rabid dog and practically being tortured every day by Hades, in part for making him pay for the defeat during the Fall of the Titans and in part trying to took out of him a relic that became embedded into his legend, the ring of Andivari; Andavaranaut.

Indifferent of the damages they were causing, the massive destruction that was provoking in one of the pillars of Themyscira, the two gods kept beating the crap out of each other, but both of them realized that this was nothing but a loss of time for both of them.

Neither of them was in their prime, neither capable of permanently slaying the other; but Hades had the advantage of the terrain and as long as the Gates were still open, Hades could drag more power from Tartarus and keep battling, Dýr had not such an advantage, neither he had his own weapons, the skeggox _Nauthr_ or the gold and silver armring _Draupnir,_ and only thanks to his status as one of the most powerful Aesir of the old times, he had stood his ground.

It was time for doing something stupid and directly suicide; after all, it was what legends were made off.

Channeling his own domain over the animals of the three Worlds, Dýr changed of strategy and instead of fighting like a giant, he started to fight like a demented predator; before Hades could even blink, he had to face a dozen of different attacks from all angles, all of them looking after vital points, made from a dozen of sudden animals that surrounded him at a speed that would have left Flash mouth agape

A wolf torn the tendons of Hades leg, a bear claw gashed the black breastplate, a snake coiled around the claws, biting and poisoning the arm of Hades in the little space between the gauntlet and the arm, a raven cawed and blinded Hades under his wing flaps and sharp talons, the tusk of a wild boar almost shred one of his legs off along piercing his hips.

It was like being assaulted by an entire zoo, but Hades was not so easy to defeat, keeping his ground and trusting his armor to deal with the worst of the assault, waiting for the chance where the barbarian would stop and took back human appearance, moment on where Hades would vaporize him in a torrent of hell flames, flames that not even him, a fellow Fire-god, could withstand without injuries.

Hades only need an opening to put an end to all this and finally, claiming the price of Themyscira and Hippolyta; she had some serious explanations to make, especially after how she gave life to the statue that they sculpt together and that had part of his own essence on her.

It was the patience game, still, Hades had to clench his fangs at the assault, it was truly relentless and always aiming for weak spots, but he was Hades, king of the Underworld and he will not fall under the attack of a barbarian whose place was below him, chained like the dog he was.

The animals just keep mobbing Hades, overwhelming the god of death with their bare mass and brute strength, meanwhile, Dýr was hiding among them, one more of the mass of animals, perhaps he was the serpent that tried to slip inside the sleeve of Hades, perhaps he was the wolf that crushed one of the armored boots of Hades under his jaws, perhaps he was the avalanche of scorpions that stung the flesh of Hades whenever they could find a place where to dig their stingers. Anyhow, Hades waited, at some point, Dýr would lose pace, transforming back into his human form and then Hades would vaporize him.

For the two witnesses, it was a battle to behold and at the same time, they cringed at the image of the animal avalanche that has befallen over Hades, even with their invulnerability and strengths, if Hades was bleeding, that means that those beasts were more than enough to made them bleed too, and dying under a horde of scorpions was not precisely pleasant, neither being torn apart by the wolves or the bears that clawed and bite the armor and flesh of Hades.

The animal onslaught continued for a while, but suddenly, Hades erupted into a pillar of fire, practically engulfing the entire attackers and burning them to ashes, however, Hades was far from over and controlling the fire, he turned the pillar into a tsunami of flames that flood in every direction, not only incinerating the hordes of animals but practically turning the entire city that surrounded the crater on where he has been fighting Dýr into a smoldering ruin, with the stone buildings torched to the ground.

Superman and Wonder woman had to fly over the incoming tide of flames and grit their teeth and the waves of supernatural heat that the fires under them had, even with the resilience to extreme condition, the fire was testing their endurance to the limit, not even when they had been close to stars has felt such a burning sensation like this one.

Still, there was something odd, Hades was searching for his enemy and there was nothing near him, but the ashes of the beasts and the charred remaining of the stone buildings of the destroyed city; Hades was not a fool, and knew well that the fire has been not enough to kill Dýr, he was a god of fire as much as Hades was and could endure hell fire better than most, sure he has been wounded, but not enough to kill him, not by far, otherwise, the bastard would have died for sure in the deepest corners of the Pitt, permanently exposed to the infernal temperatures of the deeps of the Pitt, not even the devils dared to enter that place, fearing they will burn to ashes.

Suddenly, the stone around Hades surged like a Venusfly plant, slamming Hades between their stone mass, forcing a grunt from the Olympian god, as the impact has been enough to make him lose his breath; clawing the hard stone, Hades tried to liberate himself but he realized too late, that the stone was trapping him in more ways than just trying to crush him between stone walls; trying to impose his will against the stone, Hades surprised to see that the stone was obeying Dýr, that the will of the Aesir was stronger than his and that the earth of the sacred land of the amazons, preferred to obey a foreign man than Hades.

That was quite the shock for the Olympian, discovering that his title as King of everything under earth was at stake here, that the stone and earth of a sacred land for the Olympians was under the control of a Nordmanni, a Beast in more than name, that has freed himself from Tartaro and now menaced Hades into sending him back, after centuries and centuries of planning and waiting for a chance like this; but Hades did not surrender that easily, clawing and strong arming his way with the stone walls, he destroyed his prison and free himself in a show of strength.

But it was already too late.

By the time Hades has to focus enough of his divine strength in tearing apart the stone that bound him, Dýr has already moved into an advantageous position, however, instead of delivering the finishing strike, Dýr appeared out of a burst of flames, stance ready for a powerful strike but instead of attacking with one of his fire made weapons, he was standing there, with his right hand extended; as if he was waiting for something, to come to him.

And it did come.

Only thanks to their superior reflexes, could Wonder woman and Superman, see what happened in a second, for any other it all ended in a flash; both the fighters move at amazing speeds; all the battle before was nothing but a lethal chess game for positioning into the right place and delivering the finishing strike; the devastation, the constant pressure over the other was just for positioning, like a mix of boxing and chess, both gods have been feinting at each other, trying to hide their aces and at the same time forcing the other to reveal his.

It happened it three blinks.

Blink one; something, a metallic gold, and black weapon, fly through the walls into the extended hand of Dýr, who grip the handle of the massive skeggox, and twirled into an adequate attack stance, as the blade of the ax moved, it grew into a golden, energy replica of itself of fifteen feet, cutting fire, stone and rubble like there were not there. Hades, on the other hand, broke the stone that trapped him and slashed with his claws like gauntlets sending waves of hell flames to Dýr.

Blink two; Hades and Dýr clashed with each other, the golden energy of the ax and the flames of Hades collide with each other but for the eternal surprise of Hades he lost the duel, his face twisted into a surprised expression as the golden energy cut through his attack and chewed the black metal of his claws with easiness, overpowering the supposedly indestructible armor of the Lord of the Pitt.

Blink three; the swing of the ax ended and Hades screamed, when he lost one of arms, and was almost vivisected by the golden weapon, sending his body flying into Tartarus, as the Gates closed and the rest of the first city of the Amazons, collapse under the pressure of the shock wave that the titanic clash has provoked and that has been the last straw that broke the camels back.

Superman and Wonder woman were forced to fly into the caves that lead to the outside, when the winds and the force of the clash impacted them like a solid wall, sending them tumbling into the caves that they took in the first place to get into the old; and now completely destroyed; original city of the Amazons. Before they could recover from the sudden and unexpected blast, the entire roof of the cave got down on them, collapsing the infrastructure of the cities stone ceiling and sending tons of rumble to the ground, into a lethal rain that would kill anything not superhuman.

Neither Superman nor Wonder woman were in real danger, they were sturdy enough to survive something like that easily, but the rubble falling in you and being practically buried alive was not pleasant, as they fly back to the outside of the tunnel; the rocks falling at their heels as the entire underground city fall apart as consequence of the gods battle; Superman used his X-ray vision to see if they were followed by Dýr, but for his surprise, he could see nothing of the place where the man was the last time, just after he sent Hades back to Tartarus with severe wounds.

That was unusual, his X-ray vision was capable of piercing through most of the materials, except lead and other similar dense materials; but the rocks that fall did not have such materials in their composition, instead, he was unable to see past the limits of the cave, as if the place was nothing but another part of the earth that composed the base of the land of Themyscira. As if the place was not there in the first place; Superman just mentally chalked another one in the " _Magic, duh"_ column of his personal ignore or fear list and continue flying along Diana, making a scape from the collapse.

Once both got outside, they founded the rest of the League, waiting for them; at a couple of seconds later, the entrance to the cave rumbled and collapsed in a thunderous crash, forever burying the first city under tons of rubble, earth, and stone. The silent after the fall, especially considering how the League and Hippolyta were the only living beings, was deafening, none could put on words what the hell has happened, it was a bit out of the curve even for the usual shit that the League had to deal with.

But Hippolyta just smiled and turned her face to the sea, she has sensed the presence of Dýr moving underground and how the god has mentally contacted her, saying goodbye as he was traveling back to his home, the northern lands that saw his birth in another era.

" _Welcome back, my friend"_ she smiled, thinking if the world was ready for a being that the World has not seen in ages.


	3. Beast of Muspelheim

Death was invading Midgard.

It was not the first time that an apocalyptic event took place on Midgard; far from it. The heroes and villains of this world had been creating events as those, on a common basis. In honesty, it was a miracle that Midgard was still in one piece after all the beating that the poor planet has suffered at the hands of all kind of invaders.

In the beginning, Dyr had zero intentions to join the fight. This was not his Midgard, not his battle; even in the improbable event that the Black Lanterns that were invading Midgard will triumph; Dyr would remain entombed and silent.

A golden statue of ten meters, deep within a stone and metal tomb inside a current of lava; deep underground of Svalbard. Silent, cold, indifferent to the pass of the ages, as he landed in this Midgard after Ragnarok in his own Midgard; about several eons ago.

From time to time, maybe a decade, maybe a day, maybe be a century; Dyr mind awoke and expand outside of his tomb, seeing if there was anything in Midgard that called his attention. Especially if he had to subtly discourage any investigation of discovery that could point out to the existence of his tomb.

Dyr always valued his privacy, and he was not in the mood for dealing with a headache that was the "Meta-human" world that existed outside of his warm and comfortable tomb. He was not even a memory for the inhabitants of this Midgard. Let him continue being like that; his existence was a Pandora´s box that it was better left unopened.

Unfortunately, with the dead knocking that the doors, Dyr´s slumber have been interrupted.

Not that he was going to do anything about the battle outside. This was not his Midgard, and the defenders of this world had their hands full, dealing with the unlimited supply of superpowered zombies at their doors.

These Black Lanterns were a clever, yet abominable; creation of an entity known as Nekron, Lord of the Unliving. Dyr did not personally know the entity, but as fellow Titan of sorts, Dyr could feel the power of the entity, bleeding into the Black Rings that expanded its power.

Nekron was an entity of darkness; the Abyss made conscience. It was not a Greater Titan like Muspellheim or Tartarus was, but enough to be a challenge to anything that the heroes of this Midgard could cook up to face it. Nekron carried the purviews of Death and Darkness with its name, and its power was the thing that has annoyed Dyr.

It has been a decade or so since Dyr awoke; seeing if something has changed in Midgard. Leaving apart the change of the names of the heroes of this Midgard; from JSA to JLA or something along those lines; there was little that interested Dyr.

When the infection of the Black Rings filtered to Midgard, with hundreds of those black trinkets burrowing out the graves of villains and heroes alike; Dyr´s mind registered the presence of the dark and twisted presence of Nekron inside the rings.

In the past, Dyr knew of heroes called Green Lanterns, individuals that carried rings that allow them to channel the energies of the emotional spectrum; more concretely, Willpower. Nekron has, somehow, perverted the Green Rings of Power into Black versions of them that resurrect and reanimates the dead bodies of anyone they found. Turning the walking, black and dark, corpse into a slaughtering machine.

The dead keep the powers and skills they had in life, but they are now, twisted parodies of the persons they were; hunters for Nekron. It was an insult to the honored dead of all cultures, and Dyr grumbled in his sleep. Even in his worst days, Dyr always respected the death, interfering with Death was something that only complete fools do.

Not to mention the lass was a very nice lady that did not deserve such treatment.

As the dead rise; the phrase of the ring seems to be that "Rise", as a method of activating the process that turns the restful corpses into killing machines; in Midgard and practically all world in the universe, heroes and villains of all kind tried to steer the tide. It was a futile effort, but Dyr could appreciate the gesture of courage.

Courage, loyalty, and endurance would be the virtue that could pretty much define the majority of his life; from the point on where he flies out of the nest of Muspellheim and carve a name for himself in all the realms. When someone displays an astonishing courage in front of the adversity or demonstrate loyalty and endurance against their tribulations, they gained the respect of Dyr.

Although in the beginning, Dyr was more of the opposite side of the spectrum; a vicious monster that cared for nothing but destroys whatever comes his way.

Battle after battle, it was clear for Dyr that this was an uphill battle for the heroes defending Midgard. They were sorely outclassed and overwhelmed. For each corpse they destroy, another took its place and what was worst was how the Black Rings regenerated their holders, even from the worst damages. Only very specific methods work against the bloody corpses and considering the number of Black Lanterns, it would be a miracle if the heroes; and the villains caught in the crossfire; managed to turn the tides of the "Blackest Night".

Quite the poetic name, Dyr liked it; it was oddly appropriate, all circumstances considered; but Dyr found all the situation in a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

First of all, the invasion of undead monsters was not a news flash for Dyr; he has been on both sides of such a battle several times in the past. However, Dyr never liked Necromancy, useful as it could be, at all. Disrupting the rest of the dead was something that offended Dyr deeply.

Second, the almost childish tantrum of Nekron about extinguishing all life in the universe, was so similar to the rhetoric of some of the Titans, that Dyr had difficulties to do not blink and laugh at the similarities. It was so sad, that It was not even funny; it is like listening to Mika-boshi, Erebus and Set having a discussion about how to exterminate all life on Midgard.

For his shame, Dyr would admit that he has done similar things in the past; eradicating entire worlds in the name of Muspellheim. Dyr was a soldier of Muspellheim when Surtr; his own father; ordered him and his shield-siblings to go and exterminate something, they obeyed. Absolute Loyalty, one of the reasons why Dyr got so well with some deities of the Amatsukami, the code of the Samurai shared certain similarities.

Still, Dyr was more a burn everything to ashes kind of nightmare; the Black Lanterns, on the other hand, were more akin to a plague of locust, devouring everything, until there is nothing left to consume. Once everything turned to ashes, Nekron would destroy Midgard; the new geographical center of the universe; and turn the universe into an eternal darkness, devoid of all life.

As a Forger of Stars; one of his duties as a warrior of Muspellheim; Dyr considered the idea quite offensive. Those stars did not create themselves and each one of them was a marvel of work, destroy their radiance like that was something incredibly insulting to an artisan like Dyr.

Still, and despite how cruel and harsh it could sound; this was not Dyr´s circus, not Dyr´s monkeys. This was Midgard-9; if what Dyr grasped from the computer that he has infiltrated worldwide was correct and Dyr´s original Midgard was beyond the _Bleed;_ the crimson river that intersected and connected all Midgards.

Sure, Dyr would prefer to wait until the end, in a more lively neighborhood, but in truth; unless Nekron decided it was a good idea to provoke him; Dyr would not intervene. He lacked any real reason why to do so and he had no connections to this Midgard.

Everything he knew was lost, everything he loved dead, and everything he once cherished was beyond his reach. Contrary to the arrogance of the people of the Book, he was not an omnipotent, omniscient deity; powerful? tremendously, aye; but an all-mighty being, not even in a bad joke. Dyr had emotions and desires, his motivations are surprisingly human, and for the moment, he lacked anything resembling a shadow of motivation to awake and bring the battle to the black corpses.

Dyr was a being that born from legends; legends that carry his very essence on its tale and how he interacted with the world until Fate started to turn things around and essentially made a pretzel of his life; always in the middle of the worst messes ever. Still, Dyr would not have changed it for anything else; except a couple of things that even eons later, still hurt him like the first time.

Ironically, this very same "humanity" of sorts, was one of the reasons why Dyr became what he was today and how he was one of the major defenders of his Midgard when the End of Times of all Pantheons came knocking on the doors with an ax to grind with their collective asses. From day one of his life, Dyr was different from the majority of his siblings; with time, those differences started to become more and more enunciated, and finally, he part ways with his kin and become a defender of Yggdrasil.

An Eldjotnar; fire giants, heralds of Muspellheim and agents of the Ragnarok; a proud defender of Yggdrasil, the same tree that he should be desiring to burn to cinders and let it re-grow again. Aye, the irony did not escape him.

As Eldjotnar, Dyr should be nothing but a creature of pure rage. Chaos, fire, war, those are some of the things that Eldjotnar represented, overwhelming forces that would tear the creation asunder with flames and war. And in his younger days, Dyr was precisely that.

As the eldest, strongest, son of Surtr and Sinmore; sovereigns of Muspellheim; he had a big shadow looming over him constantly. Not that he had any intentions of usurping his father position, that was a sucker job if Dyr has ever seen one; but he needed to demonstrate that he was worthy of the title of the strongest of the children of Muspellheim.

Like a child trying to impress his parents, Dyr became the very embodiment of what an Eldjotnar must aspire, but with the pass of time, the interminable campaigns, etc; Dyr started to grow weary of his own identity and look out for other ideas. Prometheus, another Titan representing harnessed fire, took him under his wing.

Under the tutelage of Prometheus, Dyr found something that changed his life forever. The joy of creation, instead of the exhilaration of destruction. It was quite the shocking experience, especially for someone that was born from the fires that will burn the Nine realms down.

Crafting wonders, forging stars that will glow in the firmament for billions of years, furnaces that could melt anything to its base components and reconfigure it into whatever the user needs, weapons capable of boiling oceans and split mountains, armors that would repel even the embodiment of the winter night, and so went the list. Those were amazing days, and cherished memories in Dyr´s mind.

Those who embody the Cold were never much into the friendly lists of Dyr; as Eldjotnar, he didn't like the cold very much. Sure, he can walk in the freezing wastes of the space without even a shrug and he has collected enough Hrymthurrsar heads in close combat to be able to craft a mountain with them; but still, the cold hurt him, it was anathema for a Fireborn like him.

That being said, Dyr had nothing against them, in fact, his last lover before Ragnarok was none other than Skadi, a frost giantess that ruled over ice and the hunt. They found each other, trying to cope with the days of the Ragnarok; Dyr still loved her, unfortunately, she died under the blades of the undead of Hellheim during the last battle.

With a mental sigh, Dyr expanded his mind into the surface; connecting with all the machines he could and dissecting the information he got from them and picked up anything that could affect him in the long run. His tomb under Bjornoya (Bear Island) was pretty secure, as the place was a natural reserve where there was zero human presence; except the caretaker and forest guards; so no one was interested in looking for anything around it.

With the destruction that the Black Lantern were doing, several systems; and Dyr noted how dependent on technology has humanity become; were in complete disarray, power lines broke, etc. It only helped Dyr to infiltrate into the machines and pick up any information that he could want from them.

No matter how they want to call it, all technology comes from fire and earth, both under the absolute domain of Dyr, so it was easy for him to connect to machines and force his way through their systems. Unless they are magically protected or under the divine protection of a deity of some kind, all machines are essentially open for Dyr´s mind.

Discarding anything that had zero interest for him; Dyr focused in the reports that came from the few surviving satellites in space; from where the reports of the battle between all kind of Lantern Corps and the Black Lanterns came in pulses of broken static and strange bursts.

It was disheartening, but the Lantern Corps did not seem to be able to contain the infinite horde of Lanterns that seems to come to Midgard; answering the call of Nekron. The heroes on the ground had their hands full too, with all the graveyards of the world suddenly erupting in hordes of heart-ripping superpowered zombies, hell-bent on destroying any living thing in sight.

The situation was pretty hopeless for the defenders and Dyr mentally debated with himself for a second, if he should intervene or not. Just for a taste of war, like it or not, Dyr was a creature of battle, it rages in his blood along the _Ichor_ that signaled him as a child of the Titans. Even if this was not his Midgard, when the drums of war sounds, they found a powerful echo in Dyr.

But that was a lifetime ago, right now, Dyr only got all the information he needed, processed the data and turn around, eager to return to his slumber and rest. The eons have not been kind to him and after falling in the _Bleed_ , he just waited for the end of the universe, when Death will come to get him and start the next great travel.

Death is an old friend, Dyr never understood why people feared her so much. She may be a bit cold, but it is because she will doom whoever she gets a liking. Its a pity, she surely could do with some friends, her siblings are a unique bunch that takes some time to get a liking.

Aye, he was not needed, he was not wanted, and he had nothing to fight for; it was if he just got back to his slumber, maybe in the future, Dyr could step out and see what kind of universe has left Nekron behind. Considering the kind of entity that it was, Dyr was pretty sure that Nekron was not going to left a universe made of sugar and rainbows.

" _Dyr Bulwark of Muspellheim"._

Someone was calling him and that nudged the conscience of Dyr; no one in this universe knows him; except Death and the other Endless Ones; so who could know of him. It doesn't matter, Dyr will simply ignore the call and get back to his slumber. With luck, whoever is calling will tire after the lack of response and let him be.

" _Dyr Bulwark of Muspellheim"._

There was the call again; Surtr Bones, cant the bloody calling take the hint and leave him alone?. Dyr only wanted to sleep again, with luck, he would slumber and the next time he awakes would be the end of the universe and the start of the next one.

" _Dyr Bulwark of Muspellheim, you have great rage in your heart. Welcome to the Red Lantern Corps"._

" _Dyr Bulwark of Muspellheim, you have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps"._

" _Dyr Bulwark of Muspellheim, you have the ability to instill great fear. Welcome to the Sinestro Corps"._

" _Dyr Bulwark of Muspellheim, you have great love in your heart. Welcome to the Star Sapphires"._

" _Surtr Bones!, what in the name of Yggdrasil is this?!"._ Shouted Dyr inside his own mind, when four flying power rings latched to his body, erupting in a cascade of the colors that they represent and destroying his tomb in an overwhelming release of the light of the emotional spectrum.

Green, Red, Yellow, and Violet surged from the cold waters of Svalbard; dragging a confused Dyr with them, into the skies. With the raw energies of four lights, Dyr´s mind was overwhelmed by the sudden influx of energies and what was worst, emotions.

It has been eons since Dyr partaken in those. At last, never in the quantities and quality that the rings were pouring into his system like they were four broken dams, spilling the waters inside of a valley, filling it to the brim.

The emotions running wild inside of Dyr carried memories with them. Several belonged to the previous owners of the rings that he wore; some of them long time dead and some of them just possessed by the Black Rings that expunged the other rings from their bodies. He saw wisdom, courage, rage, frustration, despair, love, passion; the cavalcade of memories from the point of view of four different races that fused with his own.

The emotional memories had the unexpected consequence of jolting the memories of Dyr, memories that he had long ago suppressed to keep his powers in check. A monster like him was dangerous if he got too emotional, that was a cold, hard, fact that could not be denied. Dyr´s rage could asunder planets, happened before and will happen again if he was always in control.

Ironically, the rings that were filling him with the energy of four of the facets of the emotional spectrum; were precisely the ones that could fit his personality to a T.

Rage; born from it, embraced it, channeled it and become one with it. Dyr was Eldjotnar, born in the core of Muspellheim, son of Surtr Titan of Fire, son of Sinmore, Queen of Muspellheim.

Willpower; each step in his life was an exercise of Willpower. As Eldjotnar, Dyr was fire giving shape and fire never stops, only his willpower prevents him to consume everything around, as the flames of his father will consume the Nine Worlds during Ragnarok.

Fear; the universe feared his kin, as they are; as a lack of the better term; the heralds of the apocalypse. How can you not fear the end of everything? the flames that will consume everything, indifferent of origin, merits or desires, only an eternal hunger that will devour everything in his path. That´s the stuff of nightmares for any race in the universe.

Love.

Now, that´s a tricky one. Dyr rage became passion, and with that passion came lust, with that lust, came; way latter; love. Thing is, it came as strong as his rage, meaning, Dyr loved with all his soul. If Dyr even found something that he would learn to love, he will do completely. No doubts, no second guesses; that was one of the reasons why even Hera respected him. He was completely devoted to his lovers, once they were committed to each other.

The Rage that obliterated entire pantheons, Willpower to evolve past his limitations and become something more, Fear to the hearts and mind of all that dared to get in his way and Love, eternal and devout as the flames that he represented. That was Dyr in a nutshell. Keyword was. In this Midgard, and with the influence of the four rings in his hands, Dyr was...having difficulties to compensate for the sudden flush of emotions, especially after eons slumbering within Midgard.

As a luminous missile, Dyr abandoned Midgard atmosphere and collided with the incoming wave of Black Lanterns that tried to fall on Midgard, and that was barely contained by the alliance of Lantern Corps that came in aid of the planet.

Light erupted from the darkness and thousands of Black Lanterns were consumed by the combined light of four rings acting in unison. Dyr may be dumbfounded and stunned by the emotional overdose, but the rings still reacted in automatic to the presence of hostile beings like the Black Lanterns.

Individually, only the Red is capable of destroying Black Lanterns, as the red blood that they could emit was capable of consuming the bodies and Black rings of the reanimated corpses. Being backed up by the power of the Green, the Yellow and the Violet rings, the Red was obliterating Black Lanterns left and right, echoing with the rage of his holder. One that understood rage better than anyone in this universe.

His sudden appearance was welcomed and feared at the same time.

Dyr was not precisely in the mood for socializing, he was trying to get his head in order and control the flush of emotions that four bloody rings have put on his head at the same time. After so many time dodging emotions, it was overwhelming to say the last.

With his instincts taking control, Dyr was a dangerous beast to be close. Dozens of Black Lanterns tried to rip his heart; as he was basically a living beacon of four emotions; and instead of achieving their objectives, they burned in the furnace that was Dyr presence.

Like a supernova, Dyr was a burning presence that was empowered by the power rings of four Corps; enough to become a menace for the Black Lantern Corps that fall on him like a plague of locust, eager to feed the power of their lord with the rich energy of the newcomer.

Indifferent to the black tide on his way; Dyr slammed against them with all the fury he could muster in his confused and disheveled state.

Torrents of flames and spears of solar energy rain over the horde of Black Lanterns, reaping them like wheat; unfortunately, they were simply too much and they pushed against Dyr. The body of the Eldjotnar was basically as hot as the sun; burning anything that came in touch with it, and crippling the bodies of the Black Lanterns. Until the most powerful of them; aliens from forgotten races and metahumans with power way over the mere mortals reached him and crashed against him in a thunderous collision filled with a blast of all kind of energies.

Blades of fire burned through the impossibly strong bodies of the zombies, damaging them in ways that others would found impossible. Limbs and pieces of necrotic flesh were tossed around; breaking the speed of sound before they dissipated into nothingness; followed by explosions of fire and sunlight.

Like a reactor that has suddenly reached critical mass, an explosion of pure energy covered the sky, cutting the lines of the Black Lanterns and allowing the other Corps to regroup and catch their breath.

Their alliance was shaky at best, but that did not stop them to actually fight for the lives of all the universe. Even the worst psycho among their Corps understood that being a zombie slave for Nekron was not precisely paradise and they are actually seeing examples of that when some of their comrades become infected by the rings and turned into Black Lanterns.

Dyr was carrying some of those rings and rings of deceased fighters that look out for suitable replacements. It was a not that funny joke from Fate; thanks to the memories and knowledge that the rings carried with them; all based on Oan craftmanship; now Dyr was facing the Black Lanterns along his four Corps. In truth, Dyr only wanted to get back to his tomb and sleep, he deprived himself of any emotion ages ago and now, four of the most prominent emotions in his long life had come to stomp his freaking head like a mallet.

With the reprieve of the battle, Dyr gained enough time to actually get a hold of his rampaging emotions and finally, set some of his thoughts in order.

" _Surtr Bones, I didn't experiment such a rush since I drank from the well of Udr"_ , shook his head Dyr, quickly organizing his mind; the memories and the knowledge of the rings were incredible.

As a fellow artisan of wonders, Dyr has to admit that these Power Rings are some of the most beautiful and useful things that Dyr had the pleasure of seeing. It was a channel of a superior power; the emotional spectrum; it contains all kind of knowledge and protects their wearers with all kind of useful gimmicks. From a force field to prevent damage to a universal translator and all kind of functions.

Now, each ring had its own twist; the Red, for example, has latched to his heart, trying to substitute his heart with a living battery of red rage; a napalm-like blood that would consume everything in time, Dyr liked it a lot; or the Violet that could crystallize love and trap people in prisons made of the love they had for something.

Like it or not, the emotions of Dyr were running rampant on the edges of his consciousness; trying to call for Dyr´s attention and refusing to be imprisoned again. The rings were helping their emotions, of course, after all, they feed on them and made Dyr strongest for it. That was something that Dyr did not want, he was not an egomaniac, trying to gain the absolute power, he was not avarice or greed trying to get all and do not share a single bit.

However, the rings had chosen him and now that the cat was out of the bag; it was time to get a taste of the battlefields that he ruled over, ages ago.

Fighting the Black Lanterns was a complete waste of time, they are all connected to the Black Battery, and as soon as one was destroyed, another will take its place. Graveyards are filled to the brim in millions of worlds, and the Black Rings could fly and took hold of all of them to replace their numbers.

Right now, they would be around the two billion of Lanterns, they could easily triple that numbers by raising all the corpses of Midgard, but even Nekron and his Black Battery would be hard pressed to keep that influx of troops. There are rules, that even the Lord of the Undying must abide; the Ancient Rules were there for a reason and enough loophole was all this mess, to force it even more.

Thanks to the rings, it was easy for Dyr to fly. In the past, Dyr was not able to fly, he could jump immense distances, run at Mach 2 speed, but flying was out of his capabilities. Sure, the adequate artifact could answer that, but for the most part, Dyr never cared about flying very much. Muspellheim was a land of volcanoes, fire, and brimstone, flying was not part of the gifts of the Eldjotnar.

That being said, Dyr found hilariously funny how many believed that the skies were a safe haven from the Eldjotnar. They did not fly as a commonality, that does not mean they can not reach whenever they need to deliver scorching destruction. Now, thanks to the rings that Dyr hold in his hands, he could fly with amazing easiness.

His flight pattern was still clunky, as he lacked a real talent for flying and it has been a while since Dyr abandoned his tomb; but for his purpose, it was more than enough. After all, he only needed to trace a direct route to the source of the Black Lanterns and put an end to it.

Nekron and the Black Battery, those are the main objectives. One was the mastermind and real power behind all these schemes and the other was the source of the powers that the Black Rings were exhibiting; it was needed a lot of power for the kind of trick that Nekron has pulled. And Dyr readings of the power of the rings were not the same that he was accustomed.

Dyr´s original Midgard was way more magically attuned that this one. Judging from what he has learned from the rings and the occasion that he woke up; the majority of the planet and people were firm believers in the power of science. Back in his home, the presence of the supernatural; hidden from the majority of the world so Fate could not destroy them with their own legend; was almost tangible for anyone that had even a sliver of sensitivity or talent.

Nekron has used that same power over science; the Oan rings; to craft this plot and become a material figure; once he managed to become a solid entity, then his power would be off the charts, akin to the avatar of the Greatest Titans like Tartarus or Erebus. That was something that should give pause to anyone with two brain cells.

Like a colored meteorite, Dyr fall to Midgard; tracking the signal of the biggest concentration of the dark and cold power of Nekron; he has already materialized and for what Dyr was picking up; he has managed to call forth another entity. The sudden sensation of power that hit Dyr as he traveled to the battle was so familiar that made him blink in surprise.

He remembered that sensation, it was akin to Aten; strongest and unique Titan of Light, but at the same time, it lacked the oppressive sensation of the power of the egoistical Titan. It was different, it was akin to a mixture of Aten and Gaia´s presence. It was pure light, brilliant and vibrant, that echoed with all the living beings of the planet.

The rings inform him that it was the entity of Life, the source of all living beings in the universe; the original light that pierced the darkness and gave birth to all the living beings on the universe. Dyr was a bit confused as he knew that the Light was the domain of the Presence, the entity that ruled over Heaven and that the source of celestial Light, however, perhaps this was a more down to the ground entity and means that it started the mortal life in the universe.

That was just a passing theory as Dyr did not stop his flight and in seconds, Dyr has reached the location of Nekron and the glowing white entity. Before Nekron could slash the white creature; who was pretty much at the same scale as Nekron but whose light was white and filled to the brim with life, as odd as it can sound; Dyr intervened and tackled Nekron with enough force to smash him against the land hundred of meters back and bury them under a crater of three meters deep and hundreds of meters wide.

All the zombies that have been following Nekron like lost puppies were crushed and torn to pieces by the kinetic explosion of the impact between Dyr and Nekron.

Dyr had difficulties to make a good flying pattern so it was not a surprise when Nekron blasted him back with a devastating ray of solid darkness that landed in the middle of his chest. The power of Nekron was different from others, it was not solid so to speak; it may look like it, but is not; and when the darkness hit Dyr, the Eldjotnar could feel his life energy and _Ichor_ losing power. The darkness was trying to drain him and Dyr counter it with a solar pulse that burns the darkness away and left him like a glowing beacon in the middle of the darkness.

" _Enough, Titan of Darkness, your meddling with Death is already creating disastrous consequences"._ The mental voice of Dyr thundered over the battlefield.

Dyr could not speak, it was the price he had to pay for the knowledge he needed to avenge the love of his life. As Odin sacrificed an eye for wisdom, Dyr sacrificed his voice. The mind arts were the logic and natural option for him to be able to overcome that communication disability, and much to his surprise, Dyr discovered that he was naturally gifted to them.

Nekron walked out of the crater, carrying its dammed scythe; the pale and sickly zombie-like being; dressed in black rags and with its chest cavity open; where a dry and husked heart rest, chained to the corpse-like flesh of the avatar; like the impact that would have shattered a building was nothing for him. Avatars are made of tough stuff, they are made to battle gods after all.

"Who are you?", there was a curious note in the voice of Nekron, it was the first time it meets something like Dyr. For the eyes of Nekron, it was like seeing a fire-based reflection of his own; they both shared a powerful connection to the core forces of the universe, only of different nature.

" _I am Dyr Bulwark"_ , presented himself Dyr with his body erupting in red flames and with the auras of the four rings glowing brightly in his golden hand. " _Proud son of Muspellheim"._

Nekron recognized a threat when he saw one; much like the Anti-monitor, that he trapped on the Black Battery; but this one was completely different. In fact, Nekron almost felt a tinge of empathy for a fellow primordial being; however, if he was going to stand in his way, he would perish like the rest.

"The entity of Life is mine", said Nekron with absolute certainty, "I will kill it and plunge the universe in the Darkness once more; no more cheating Death, no more chaos, I want peace and I will get it again!". Roared Nekron raising its scythe and charging against Dyr at amazing speeds.

" _As you wish, foolish Titan, have at thee!"_ , replied Dyr before charging back.

Dyr was more than expecting that and after a quick call to his tomb; where several treasures and other things were resting; he jumped back at Nekron generating his own weapon of pure sunlight to oppose to the black scythe of Nekron.

The black scythe; with a black lantern battery connecting blade and handle; clashed against the radiant Dane ax of Dyr in a sizzling and luminous collision; even if the blades were not entirely material, the impact was enough to push everything around like they have been hit by a massive explosion.

It was a battle fought on several levels; not only the physical realm.

The blades of both tried to slice the flesh of their physical bodies; cutting and ripping their powers; meanwhile, oceans of shadows clashed against bulwarks of flames.

The Black Lanterns Corps tried to aid to their lord, but from the Red ring, giants of red energy stomped them around, consuming them in the corrosive red of the energy of their bodies. Glowing green Valkyries fall upon the flying corpses around the entity, preventing any of them to reach the white being.

Yellow energy monster hounds; nightmares of spines, claws, and fangs, tore upon the reanimated corpses of the heroes of this Midgard, before their black rings could siphon the energy that created them; violent crystals stitched the lesser wounds of the heroes, as violent chains bounded the corpses of the Black Lanterns, subtly corroding the connection to the battery of Nekron.

Fire and Light, Death and Darkness collided with each other in a display of pyrotechnics that vaporized anyone stupid enough to get close to them. This was not a battle for mortals, Titans were clashing against each other and despite the violent encounter, there was not a sensation of hate in neither of them.

Fire does not hate what it burns, Death does not hate what she takes; it's a natural order, the sun rises, the night comes, Midgard keeps rotating and the universe continues.

For the astonished eyes of the witness of the clash of the Titans, it was a primordial spectacle like they have never seen before. Even the Black Lantern Corps paused for a second, unable to decipher what they were witnessing and with their rings unable to comprehend the kind of battle that Dyr and Nekron were unleashed at each other.

Unfortunately, there is one that managed to reach the white entity and saw all his desires fulfilled.

Taal Sinestro, originally the best Green Lantern that the Guardians of Oa had; a beacon of order, until his desires and views of the universe pushed him past his limits and turned to his own little club of psychopaths and fools. They call themselves the Sinestro Corps, and actually, Dyr was one of them thanks to the Yellow ring in his hands. Taking a page of the Green Lantern Corps, Sinestro crafted a Corps based on Fear instead of Willpower, but he never stopped believing that he was the greatest Lantern that has ever existed.

When Sinestro made contact with the Entity, all bets were off and he became the White Lantern, the holder of the light of life. A white, blinding, warrior of pure light that joined the brawl between Dyr and Nekron, determined to demonstrate the universe that he was the greatest ever and to put an end to the Blackest Night.

In all honesty, Dyr was actually impressed with the alien; Sinestro, with all his flaws, possessed an unusual force of will that is was hard to find. Courage and endurance in front of the adversities were two of the most valued virtues by Dyr and Sinestro possessed them in spades. However, his own ego and narrow mind have to get him into the middle of a battle that he had little to none right to intervene.

Dyr and Nekron faced the onslaught of white constructs that came their way; thanks to the training that Siniestro have in two Corps, he could manipulate the light of the Entity with amazing precision and power, creating a veritable army of constructs to hammer to defenses of the two contestants. It was especially hard for Nekron as he was the antithesis of the White energy and his dark essence suffered under the touch of the white light.

Construct by construct, Dyr endured the assault better, but not much better. His rings were a hindrance now, as the power was a facet of the white light that came his way; meaning, they were weak against it. Dyr has to fight them with his own fire; but not without suffering some damages. The purest form of energy was as harmful to him as anybody else.

In an impressive display of determination, Sinestro managed to rip the heart of Nekron off his chest, the scream of the avatar of Darkness was melody for the ears of the leader of the Sinestro Corps; who stood triumphant, with the heart of the darkness in his hand and the light covering him like an armor.

Dyr knew better if killing a Titan would be that easy, the god would not have been battling them for eons; in fact, killing a Titan is a massive NO in the order of the universe. Killing a Titan means that the slayer was essentially killing an aspect of reality.

Killing Gaia, for example, would mean that earth, flora, and fauna would be slain as well; sometimes literal, sometimes metaphorical. Odin slain Yimir and the world had to face massive ice age for eons before the Cold was re-balanced again.

Dyr finally blasted to smithereens the construct that was attacking him and as he was free; Sinestro was suddenly attacked by a reanimated Nekron; that has reformed itself, as soon as one of the zombies Black Lanterns picked up his scythe. The black blade of the scythe practically bisected Sinestro in half, as Nekron savagely ripped out of him the Entity.

Fortunately for the alien, the power of the Entity was keeping him alive, despite being cut in half.

The Entity and Nekron fought for a bit, but the Entity was not a fighter and Nekron was hell-bent on killing her. Dyr raised a volcanic eruption under Nekron, surrounding him in a lava cocoon; even for the avatar of darkness, being showered in the molten core of the planet was not a pleasant experience.

Nekron blasted the lava everywhere, forcing most of the fighters to cover or at last, raise their own protections. As it freed itself from the lava prison, an army of Lantern toss their light at him, crushing against the floor of the graveyard. It was a futile effort, as Nekron would only absorb or ignore the energies; Nekron was as anathema to the emotional spectrum as the White life was for it.

Nekron swung his scythe and several lanterns were killed, their force fields unable to counter the weapon; accompanying the swing a torrent of black came from the back of Nekron, along with several spiked chains that broke the shields of anything close and cause tremendous harm to the exposed flesh. Whenever the dark or the chains touch flesh, it became necrotic tissue at an accelerated rate; even the physically strongest of the present will fall when their own flesh betrays them and decay in seconds.

Dyr was attacked by another batch of Black Lanterns, but they lacked the necrotic touch of its master and their rings broken and melted under the impossible skin of Dyr. The red skin of Dyr was red hot, covered in gold like veins and irradiating heat all around, enough to burn stone and melt everything that dared to get too close. Of course, he could control whom does he damaged, but right now; almost buried under walking corpses; Dyr had little intention of cutting short the damages.

Vaporizing the corpses with a solar flare; Dyr was the witness of the formation of a White Lantern Corps, notable individuals that carried the white light of Life. Together, they fought Nekron with one of the few things that could actually damage the body of the Titan of Darkness.

Now, Dyr realized the true trick of Nekron.

Despite all the damage, and the loss of his Battery; expelling the Anit-Monitor back to his universe; and the damages that it has suffered, Nekron was still anchored to this realm. For a primordial being like it, that should be quite impossible, unless it has a permanent anchor; and lo and behold, it did have one. In the form of a crazy human called Black Hand. A human so obsessed with Death that he become the perfect host for the Darkness.

Dyr was about to cut a path through the horde of Black Lanterns and vaporize beyond recovery the holder of the original Black Ring when Nekron got free of the onslaught of the White Lantern Corps and made a run for the Entity.

It was its original objective after all if it managed to kill the Entity, all life in the universe will die with her. That´s why she did all she could to hide from any potential enemies and those that would want to use her light for their own purposes.

For the second time, Dyr intercepted Nekron, clashing against him with enough force to shatter a mountain; that only made Nekron fall to the side and stumble, despite all the gaps and cracks on his undead body; and pushed him far from the Entity.

This battle was pointless unless the Black Hand fellow was taken care off, Nekron will continue fighting, always recomposing itself with the unlimited supply of corpses of the universe.

 _"Black Hand is the key, reanimate him and Nekron will lose its hold"_. Informed Dyr telepathically to all the defenders of Midgard, before he shoved his hands in the neck and gut of Nekron and shot to the heavens like a colored geyser.

With Nekron as a battery ram and ignoring the horrid gashes and corruption of the flesh that the Titan of Darkness was inflicting on him; Dyr rammed the plague of Black Lanterns that keep falling on Midgard. The majority of the corpses exploded in visceral pieces, merely by the shockwave of the impact against them; others, more resilient due to their species, were only crippled or tossed around like ragdolls.

The latter was the most fortunate of them.

Nekron was the Titan of Darkness, Dyr was the Titan of Fire.

In the middle of the dark ocean of life devouring corpses, a star erupted in all its glory.

Among his kin. there was a state that was considered the pinnacle of power; the moment where a divine being become one with something they represent; reaching that point means that the being could be considered a full-fledged deity. That state was called _Avatar_ , representing an aspect of reality.

Dyr was fire; all fire, that included celestial fire; meaning, he could become an Avatar of the Sun. In the legends of old, such power was called The Glory, the physical manifestation of the power of the Sun. The sun of Midgard was a young star, still bright and warm, Dyr has forged the suns of thousands of galaxies; so when he became the Glory, he embodied the perfect power of a Supernova and the warm heat of the perfect summer evening.

A golden helmet covered his head, red cape of pure sunlight floated over his body.

Blinded and burned by the sudden eruption of raw power, Nekron did not see the weapon that came flying to the hands of the blinding monster in front of him.

 _Grádr_ , Hunger, in Old Norse, the personal weapon of Dyr; a massive Danish axe that has tasted the blood of Titan and Gods alike; fly to Dyr´s hands and with a powerful swing, that cut the darkness in half, Dyr bisected the body of Nekron along thousands of the Black Lanterns that floated behind him, and have not been vaporized by the Glory.

With a deafening scream, Nekron body, no longer anchored by Black Hand, started to lost cohesion; alas, it has a Titan and one does not slay a Titan without consequences. Among them, trying to contain the divine energies that it´s broken vessel was unleashing.

The Glory was the Avatar of the Sun; but for the Darkness, it was the Abyss.

Being engulfed in absolute the darkness is never a pleasant experience. The absence of everything and the soul-numbing cold that filled the Abyss assaulted Dyr, who only was capable to endure it thanks to being the Glory.

For several agonizing moments, the Abyss devoured all lights, covering the space between Midgard and the sun. No lights, no sounds, nothing; just eternal darkness, devoid of anything remotely resembling a shadow of life or emotion.

A black ocean of void that engulfed the lives of all, metahumans, aliens, supernaturals, it mattered little. The Abyss was Darkness incarnated, once it appears, whatever is under its cover, will no longer be seen again.

Then, the light came.

Glowing like an ember, timidly at the beginning; the light of the Glory started to gain strength.

There was an old saying, that Dyr always loved and that guided him through several bad moments in his life. No matter how dark the night is, there will always be a sun in the morning.

Taking strength in that humble belief, Dyr continued battling the eternal darkness with the eternal light; slow but steady, cleansing the darkness and once again, letting the sun glow in the brightest day over Midgard.

Unfortunately, Nekron has played the last card, and for the eternal shock of Dyr, that card has been modified by an old friend, and turned what would have been a curse, into something unique and different a new twist to the emotional spectrum, a new path for the Lights of the Nine Corps, and a chance to grow into something bigger than the sum of their parts.

If Dyr managed to survive that´s it, after all, once the Glory subdued, leaving his body and the cracked rings of his hand; unable to cope with the titanic energies of Dyr; falling into Midgard, Dyr realized that he had a new ring in his hand, a Black Ring, so similar to those of the Black Lanterns and at the same time different.

A young woman reflected for a second in the polished black metal of the ring, smiling warmly at Dyr, before a female voice echoed in his head.

" _Dyr Bulkwark of Muspellheim. At peace"._

 _Svalbard North Arctic Sea._

Hunting was an activity that Dyr enjoyed from time to time.

With Skadi, it was a daily basis activity, she was a Goddess of the Hunt in a sense, and she took great pleasure in it. Dyr was not that eager, but he accompanied her on several occasions, sharing the joy of the hunt and carrying a prey to their home.

In this case, Dyr was hunting down a reindeer, a big specimen for its kin; easily on the hundred kilos. The reindeer of Svalbard was smaller than the rest of their species, but this one was perfect for Dyr necessities.

Technically speaking, Dyr could be hundreds of years without eating or eat anything; literally anything; as his body was like a furnace that will transform everything in nutrients. But a good, old, warm, meal was something that Dyr craved after being eons slumbering in his tomb under the island.

There was nothing left of his tomb now; the magma that surrounded it filtered inside as soon as Dyr cleaned up the place and let it be consumed on the molten currents of the core of Midgard. That would erase any trace of his presence and prevent any possible tracking or use whatever they could found there, to establish a sympathetic link. Dyr was knowledgeable enough in the ways of magic to knew to never left anything behind.

Back in the old days, one of the biggest bastards Dyr has ever seen; Simbi Makaya, a powerful sorcerer that served under the Mistress of the Drowned Road; took a liking to twist the Fates of anyone that was unfortunate enough to cross paths with. When Dyr foiled several of his plans; and by so displeasing his mistress; Simbi tried all he could to twist Dyr´s fate into something that would leave a Greek tragedy like a fairy tale.

Survival forced Dyr to learn a lot about how to defend for all kind of magic; such precautions bleed into his everyday routines. His allies and friends call him paranoid, but Dyr preferred to be called cautious; after all, he was a Titan too, even if he fought against the Titanomachy, and knew perfectly well how devious his kin could be.

The poor reindeer had zero chances to escape from Dyr and after an hour of chasing the animal all around the island; a good exercise to practice his shape-shifting skills, way too rusty for his slumbering; Dyr finally beheaded the poor reindeer, killing him in an instant and without any pain. The sharp edge of _Grádr_ was enough to cut the unnaturally resilient skin of supernatural beast; the thick skin, fur and bone of the reindeer was not even a challenge.

The wound was cauterized by the fires of the blade of _Grádr;_ Dyr could sense the blade enjoying the offering of blood. The weapon was still high from tasting the _Ichor_ and flesh of a Titan like Nekron; it hunger quelled for a while with such a feast.

Easily picking up the carcass, Dyr ran back to his little lair, on the northern coast of the island; far from an observation post and patrols that the keepers of the island had, in cases of furtive hunters or any problem that may occur in the island. Dyr respected these people for protecting one of the few natural places left on the surface of Midgard.

After the end of the battle with the Black Lanterns and Nekron, Dyr retired from any possible interrogation; hiding from everybody until he understood better this era and the kind of menaces and possible allies that he could have.

First thing, was to deal with the five rings in his hands.

Using the powers of the rings, he has managed to camouflage himself from the rest of the Corps and proceed to create his refuge in Svalbard. Somehow, he was sure that his magical presence has been detected by the mystic warriors of these Midgard, but so far, he has been left alone. Either they were incredibly busy with the aftermath of the battle against Nekron or they were displaying an unusual amount of common sense.

Green, Yellow, Red, Violet and Black Rings of power gleamed subtly in his golden fingers; all the bloody rings had taken a liking to him for what it seems; however, Dyr knew that the only one of them that he was never going to be able to left was the Black one. Even with all the difficulties that would be losing the Red ring; the red light of Rage was in his blood now; Dyr knew that the Black was different.

Death has gifted it to him.

Why?, who bloody knows, the lass was as inscrutable as Fate when she wanted and for whatever reason, she has made him her Black Lantern. It was a work in progress as his ring did not feed on emotional energies like the others; point is, that he lacked anything resembling a Battery.

The other rings needed about ninety hours; each; to inform him of all the pros and cons of their powers. It was a good thing that Dyr was a multitasker like any other and could attend to all the explanations, at the same time that he worked on his refuge.

The rings were pretty similar at their core, with notable differences on how to channel the different emotions that were the origin of their powers. The ones that felt more familiar to him was the Red and the Black; curiously two of the colors that suit him the better along with gold. the Red was crafted with magic, powerful blood magic that Dyr has not seen since the Atzlanti, the Aztec Gods; and the Black was infused with a whisper of Death´s power.

The Green seems to be the original model that the rest were based off, however, the technology that the Green carried has been heavily altered in the Violet and modified into a more aggressive version on the Yellow.

It has been an informative week so far, with his learning and crafting the temporary refuge he had in Svalbard. Unfortunately, among Dyr´s capabilities was not the ability to travel between worlds; not without some heavy preparation and help; and he can only catch glimpses of the supernatural world from the thing called the Internet.

Such a well of knowledge, so tainted by mankind´s worst traits…

The thing that surprised him a lot; perhaps the biggest difference from his old Midgard; was the presence of aliens in Midgard.

In his Midgard, aliens were practically extinct; perhaps some residual colonies here and there, but for the most part, any alien race or civilization more advance that the stone age has been obliterated and their pantheons destroyed in the wake of the Greater Titans.

Dyr was part of those armies, in fact, he was pretty sure that he meet and vanquish L´Zoril, the God of Dreams of the Martians, and along with him several others like the Tamarean X´Hal, although the last one was a slave of Gran Bois; primordial of the forest; for what he remembered.

There were several aliens living in Midgard, most of them in the superhero business, as their superior qualities made them perfect candidates for the hard job. It was almost fascinating how easily they have fit into this Midgard every day. It was almost hopeful for him that Midgard will not reject him as violently as he was expecting. Ironically, as the heroes of old; the people feared and adored these superheroes at the same time, whining when they fail but screaming for them when something went wrong.

It was bloody hilarious.

The metahuman community of Midgard was bigger than Dyr expected and incredible variated as well; of course, his major source was Internet, and Dyr discovered in nano-seconds how little reliable the thing was. However, it was a step for accessing to less public hubs and databases that were way more detailed and clear about the real state of Midgard.

Reading the data on those hidden digital libraries, Dyr wondered how was even possible that Midgard has not been obliterated a hundred times by now. So far, it seems that Dyr should be grateful to the JLA for being there to face the worst crisis and somehow, resolve them as good as they could. It was a very ungrateful job that only made them receive critics from idiots that have opinions and brilliant ideas, After, the crisis has been solved.

Not really a surprise, the world was full of cynics, the motto of the world seems to be avarice at all cost; I, me, mine, for me was the code of conduct of the modern world, who cared very little about the consequences of their actions, believing that someone would pick up the slack and they could walk their merry way and nothing will happen.

They couldn't be more wrong, but usually, shortsightedness was a flaw that few mortals could overcome.

It didn't take long for Dyr to cover the distance between the hunting spot and the entrance of his cave. Thanks to his domain over the earth, it was an easy task to cover the entrance with a big rock, whenever he got out of it for food, the water or whatever he could need.

Thanks to his shapeshifting powers, he has walked over the cities of the majority of the world; taking in the sights and strolling like all the other tourists. Thanks to a mixture of telepathy, domain over machines and persuasion, Dyr had a couple of identities and a small fortune to spend as he learned more about Midgard.

Metropolis, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney, Mexico, Madrid, Londres, Moscow, and several more; Dyr visited them all; familiarizing with how the modern world works and lives. It was an exhausting work, to be honest. This world paid so much value to material possessions that it was almost a joke. Greed was the credo of the humans, poor misguided bunch.

At last, the cuisine was pretty good; from Dyr´s point of view, of all the achievements of humanity, the variety of its cuisine was the biggest of them. Dyr has always enjoyed a good meal and after eons slumbering, feeding on the heat and lava of the core of Midgard, he was in the mood for some tasteful dishes.

With the practice of one that has done it a million of times, Dyr skinned the reindeer, picked up the best pieces of meat and left the fur to dry. The leftovers of the reindeer were sent flying into the forest above the cave, where the local bears will take care of it.

Once inside the cave, Dyr sealed most of the entrance again; leaving enough space for air to enter; carrying the meat inside the cave, Dyr walked to the little quarters he had inside. They were pretty crude, but in truth, he doesn't really need much. A stone table where several alchemist instruments rested; all of them have been used in the week he has passed in the island; a cooking pit and an empty space in one of the corners of the room.

Whistling an old tune, Dyr proceed to impale the meat and after dressing it with a mixture of species, honey and licorice, left the meat roast over the cooking pit, using his domain over the fire to keep the flames lit, even if the wood and charcoal burned off. As the skewer was made of metal, it was easy for Dyr to keep the meat gyrating over the fire, making sure that it roasted evenly.

Jumping into the empty space, something akin to a pool of some kind; Dyr called for the lava of the underground and smiled when the pool, get slowly filled with warm lava.

It was akin to a hot bath for him, and a secure method to practically clean any possible impurities that he could have bought from the outside. The fire was the perfect cleanser, rarely something survives it, especially when it was at the temperature of the sun. The heat did not leave the pool, Dyr made sure of that, controlling the heat so it will be contained in his particular bath.

Relaxing against the borders, Dyr cleaned himself with the lava, enjoying the warm and comfortable sensation of the liquid fire over his body. Sure, he could have taken a bath in the open waters out there, but Dyr preferred this boiling baths; he was Eldjotnar, putting him on the frozen waters of the Arctic was not a good idea.

Dyr submerged himself on the lava; fishes breathed on water, Eldjotnar breathed on lava, unusual talent but talent nonetheless; and meditated about what to do from now on. His principal project was almost complete, and from then on, he was free again to do what he wanted.

And that was the biggest question, what the hell did he want?.

Sighing to himself, knowing that he lacked the answer to that question, he exited the lava and left it to filter through the stone bottom of the pool, back to the lava currents deep underground the island. Satisfied with his hygiene, Dyr jumped out of the pool and with a though, materialized some clothes to be around.

Dyr got accustomed to adding clothes to his transformations, it eased the interactions with the majority of the mortals. Animals and other supernatural beast did not care about it, but almost all supernatural races and lots of alien races had some kind of fashion; being around naked was usually aligned with negative ideas, despite the fact that Dyr was an Eldjotnar, they only use clothes that could endure the infernal heat of their bodies and those are rare as the teeth of an owl.

Of course, Dyr´s sense of fashion was heavily influenced by his time along the Aesir, so when he created his clothes; they were made in the old Nordmanni fashion. Comfortable pants, sturdy boots, wool sleeveless jacket and a fur covered long cape, along with a wide belt. The clothes were in a red and black color, with the gold of his arms visible. He resisted the temptation of wearing the colors of the Corps that he belonged, but black and red were always his favorites, and for what he recalled of the ladies of his life, they suited him well.

Inside the cave, a bit separated from his quarters, Dyr had a big, circular room. Excavated in the stoner rock of the cave, it was big enough to house a hundred people comfortably. It was bare of anything that was not the four massive roots that emerged from the walls of the room; on each root, a pod could be seen, a pool filled with a pale golden liquid where a body; one for each pod; resting in a fetal position.

The big roots were of green and brown color and from time to time, a golden glow emanated from within the pods and the xylem of the roots, transporting the nutrients and energies that the bodies inside the pods need to heal from the intrusion of the Black Rings.

Thanks to his connection to the Black Ring in his hand, the one that has been altered by Death; Dyr knew that not all people infected by the original rings were dead, they were in the past, but something happened to bring them back alive. It was complicated, and one of the reasons why Nekron was so pissed off; death was a revolving door in this Midgard.

The four rings; Green, Red, Yellow, and Violet; originally belonged to members of their original corps that shared a brush with Death but came alive at the end; the Black Rings latched into that and took possession of them. Except for the Green, that ring came from a betrayal from the Guardians of Oa, that did something very stupid and a lot of Lanterns paid the price.

Dyr was just restoring the balance, by healing the bodies and minds of the original owners and let them return to their corps with a message and a blessing.

The process has taken longer than Dyr expected, most of it was grown the healing pods adequately. Dyr was a horrid gardener and had to be extra careful to grow the roots adequately. But by the end of the day, Dyr was confident that they will be healed and ready for the return to their corps. Dyr will use the powers of the four rings for the last time and return them to their original owners.

The biggest problem was the Red, among the insane powers that the Red ring confer, was also the drawback of having his blood and heart substituted by the napalm blood-like substance that made the Red Lanterns so bloody; pun totally intended; dangerous. It was a brutal method of ensuring that once a Red Lanterns is chosen, it will never relinquish its duty. Although, for what Dyr could recall of the Red ring, the rage was so overwhelming for the majority of the recruits that they are most of the times, acting like frenzied berserkers.

Very few managed to control and channel their rage, recovering their intellect and cunning and keeping their powers as Red Lanterns. Those are the most dangerous of them of course.

Anyhow, Dyr was hoping that by tweaking the program of the rings a little, he would get in the good graces of the Corps; and if not, then bad luck, taking down any possible hunter would be a welcome challenge to keep himself in good shape.

Checking that the pods were fine and their patients recovering adequately; Dyr walked out of the healing chamber, back onto the quarters of the cave. Creating a stone chair in front of the cooking pit, he took a seat and started to eat the roasted reindeer at a sedate pace. He was not in a hurry, so he was enjoying the sensation of a good meal, after eons of absence physical sensations.

It was not a traumatic experience for him; once Dyr become so attuned to the earth; as in stone, ground, metal, etc, not as nature itself, that was out of his reach; and his arms become the gold relics that they are today, being a living statue was not bothersome at all for him. In fact, it was a trick that he has used more than once in the battlefield, turn his entire body into living stone, metal or diamond and mystically alter its properties to gain an advantage over the enemy.

Still, he was Eldjotnar at heart; fire, primordial fire, was his real attribute and after so long without any sensation, be it physical or emotional; the occasional escapades were like drops in an ocean in that regard; it was a welcome change to move around, hunt food, breath fresh air, etc…

Now that Death has pretty much strong-armed him into the role of Champion of the Black; whatever that would be, Dyr has not dig too much in that headache yet; Dyr was sure that returning to his slumber will disappoint the lass, and that would be a very bad idea. Even if she was bonded to the Ancient Rules, Death was a very crafty lass, and her siblings would happily make anyone miserable, just to get in her good graces.

The Black ring of his golden hand was similar to those that created the Black Lanterns of Nekron; it was granted to him after he became the Champion of Death against Nekron, one that was trying to usurp the role of the lass and shut down the universe before the universe´s appointed hour. In essence, Dyr was the last Black Lantern, and possibly the only one that will ever be.

Contrary to the rest of the Corps, Dyr lacked any Battery from where the rings extracted power, he was the source of the power of the ring, feeding his _Ichor_ , into it. Not to mention Death would not be happy with hundreds of champions running around creating messes. Another thing would be that the next Black Lantern would drain Dyr´s power for their rings and Dyr was not in the mood of becoming anyone´s personal battery of cosmic power.

Devouring the reindeer, Dyr expanded his mind onto the nearby island; feeling the presences of the inhabitants of Svalbard. Then he expands his mind into the satellites in orbit; latching to the data that they carried and streamed all over the world. Dyr has to admit that this wireless method of communication was kind of impressive; all to easy to enter in it, but impressive nonetheless; it was a very quick way of familiarizing himself with the common knowledge of this modern world.

Dyr even created an account in one of those blasted things called social media; horrible waste of time and resources to be honest, but he was an old Eldjotnar, such distractions were against anything he believed; only getting confirmation of how bored this world people were, by losing so much time playing around in those cyberspaces or something along those lines.

As Eldjotnar, as master of the earth and the harnessed fire, Dyr may be able to submit any technology but that didn't give him instant knowledge of the inner workings of all technology. Although thanks to the rings, he has access to an incredible repository of knowledge, the databases of four Lanterns Corps were at his disposal and that has allowed Dyr to gain enormous knowledge about this universe.

So far, the aftermath of the Blackest Night, as the war with Nekron has been called, was not as terrible as Dyr feared; in fact, humanity has taken it in stride and pretty much accept it as the latest crisis that they have to endure.

Of course, there were voices that blamed everything on the shoulders of the superheroes, how they were the origin of all evils on earth, yadda, yadda; the usual amount of demagogues and incendiary media. Luckily they were not Cassandra´s; as Dyr called the few cursed individuals whose words become prophecies, always for the worst; otherwise, Midgard would be screwed hundred of times, listening to the flaming critics that they spill in radio, TV, internet, etc.

Another of the major differences with Dyr´s original Midgard. Heroes are public here, they do not hide in the shadows; fearing the intervention of Fate and the metaphysical backlash of faith and belief, but they are openly acting in front of the world. Masks apart; the only way to protect them from retaliation; they act in the open, and they were both admired and criticized at the same time.

It was mind-blowing for Dyr, but it was not his place to tell them how to act. They chose this path, it was theirs to walk. Dyr was an old Eldjotnar, and had a lot of difficulties to even understood half of the idiocies that humanity did to themselves in the name of the craziest of the ideologies and beliefs.

Finish the reindeer and incinerating the bones in the cooking pit; Dyr leaned over the stone chair, taking a moment for himself. After a week working on the cave and the pods and traveling back and forth learning all he could, it was the first time that he could sit back and relax for a bit. The major objective was all but completed, now it was only a matter of time before the JLA or any other supergroup present in Midgard seek out for his location.

The cave was heavily protected against all kind of scrying magic; Dyr has taken serious precautions against that; just in case any magician out there managed to track him down. The ring helped a lot in protecting the place; they seem to understand what he was doing and helping in his efforts. The program of the rings was way more advanced than their holders believed, it was attuned to their Batteries and through the powers, they channel, to the beings that experimented emotions for the first time in the universe.

Parallax, entity of Fear; did not seem to care much, but another ring, another bringer of fear was always a good thing in his book; Predator, Ion, and Butcher, the entities of Love, Will and Rage, did care and helped him to create the pod, by protecting him from any kind of technological scan. Considering the advanced tech that they represent, it was hard to believe that anyone in Midgard had bigger tech that the Guardians.

Still, it was not that preposterous that someone in Midgard may be playing with fire and tinkered with Father or Mother-Box tech from Apokolyps or New Genesis, home of the so-called New Gods and Darkseid. Both headaches on its own and people that Dyr not really wanted to meet.

Surtr Bones, Dyr was convinced that he would incinerate the place, just for the arrogance of calling themselves gods or any kind. Nekron was an entity of Darkness, it was an Avatar of Erebus, these gods are nothing but a highly advanced civilization that proclaimed themselves gods. However, for what Dyr could read in the hidden databases that he found; Darkseid may be as dangerous as Nekron, even if its only in pure physical powers.

That would be an interesting battle, and judging from what Dyr has experienced in his life; at some point in the future, he and Darkseid are going to clash blades for something. After all, it was not the first time that Darkseid tried to conquer Midgard, only to be forced back by the combined efforts of all heroes on Midgard. That must have been a battle for the ages. Children squabble compared with the Titanomachy, but from humanity´s perspective, a bloody apocalyptic event.

Soon the rings will be back to their owners and Dyr will found himself without anything to do.

There were some ideas that he took a mental note for the future, chief among them, the balance of the emotional spectrum and the creation of an Asgard in this Midgard. Judging from the information; mind you that the information lacked deep in the supernatural department; there was zero presence of the pantheons that he knew from his Midgard with some notable exceptions.

The Dodekatheon; Olympians; were more active in this world, with the presence of the Amazons of Themyscira and the heroine called Wonder Woman in the JLA. Another heroine carried a totem that allowed her access to the Animal domain; there were other totems from Zambezi that allowed access to other domains too, quite peculiar. There was a reference of Hercules and Gilgamesh in some files of the public server of the JLA, the Pesedjet; Egyptian; are also present, especially with a Lord or Order; whatever it was; called Nabu.

But there was little mention to Asgard or any of the other Nine Realms. Dyr had the theory that the Ragnarok took place, and that destroyed Asgard and their hold on Midgard. Ragnarok was the end of the cycle and the beginning of a new one; debilitated and reduced to a few, it would not be a surprise if Asgard close borders with everything until they could recover the loses.

The gods are and are not present in this Midgard, they seem to be content to act through champions, with the exception of Wonder Woman who was a Scion like the ones that Dyr was more than accustom to fight against and together. Her _Ichor_ was of Olympian purity, perhaps one of the three brothers. It was a curious change from what Dyr knew, but this Midgard was nothing like the original one, so he will go with the flow and try to adapt.

The rings on his hand glowed a soft light, signaling the end of the healing process in the pods.

Dyr raised from the chair; that sunk itself to earth again, and walked back to the cave; everything in his spartan quarters disappeared back inside the earth and stone, turning back into the ground of the island like it has never been there. Dyr was not going to need the cave again, so it returned to the earth from where it came from. After reaching the center of the healing chamber, Dyr focused and the roots left the pods, leaving four golden eggs resting on the cold floor of the chamber.

The entire chamber shocked when the very earth of the island moved, creating an open space from where the eggs could reach the cold, but beautiful, starred sky over the island. It was a nice night, there were no clouds and the moonlight reached the insides of the, now open, chamber, covering Dyr and the eggs in silvery light.

Dyr raise his hand and left the ring return to their true owners, it has been fun and enlightening, but the rings had a duty to fulfill and Dyr a debt to pay.

" _Laira Omoto of Jayd, you have great rage in your heart. Welcome to the Red Lantern Corps"._

" _Alisan´dr of Tamaran, you have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps"._

" _Miri Riam of Lartnec, you have great love in your heart. Welcome to the Star Sapphires Corps"._

" _Weaponer of Qward, you have the ability to instill great fear. Welcome to the Sinestro Corps"._

As the rings got back to their masters, they abandon the body of Dyr; very painfully in the case of the Red; but it was not the first time that his heart has been ripped off his chest. It was painful, but it did not even reach the top ten of his painful experiences.

Charging the golden eggs and reverting them to cocoons of their respective lights; the former healing pods, point out to the skies and fly to the stars, leaving big trails of energy behind them. It was quite the spectacle, four colors tracing an uprising geyser of light onto the black and star spotted skies of the Arctic seas.

Standing in the middle of the empty room, Dyr closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

Growing a new heart and filtering the red blood of the Red Lanterns was not an easy task, even for someone like him. The pain was an old friend, but more often than not, it tends to be annoying, so Dyr put it in its place and recompose his inner body. As Eldjotnar and shapeshifter, Dyr lacked the same limitations that most of the mortals of this universe; but regrowing vital organs was never a pleasant experience.

" _That went well"_ , echoed a feminine voice in his head with an amused tone. _"I like what you did with them"._

" _Thanks, lass",_ mentally answered Dyr. " _Can I do something for you?"_. Asked politely, after all, no one dared to be a smartass with Death, it was deathly...horrible pun Not intended. Dyr was way more rusted that he suspected if this little healing experiment has reduced his wit to such horrible puns.

" _Oh, don't mind me, just checking on my favorite Champion, how are you faring in this new world, old man?"._ Giggled the gothic girl reflecting on the surface of the Black ring of Dyr.

Dyr mentally snorted; the humor of the lass sure could get a tune-up. Technically speaking, Dyr was older than Death; Dyr was born before Death came around to put order among the Primordial entities; the Greater Titans like Muspellheim, Tartarus, etc.

" _I found myself amused, intrigued, shocked and enraged by this Midgard"._ Confessed Dyr, still trying to make heads or tails of the humanity that populated this version of Midgard _. "They are an idiotic genius bunch, with amazing ideas and stupidity filtering from all their pores"._

" _So, business as usual",_ laughed the lady.

" _Indeed, lass",_ chuckled Dyr.

" _Ready to your debut in society? I am eager to see you in cape and tights"._ It was a curious question, but behind the levity and the tone; Death was sending a lot more information.

The Champion of the Black was not some kind of a pushover, in fact, it was clear that whoever was the unfortunate one, the Champion will have to face challenges and problems that would have cosmic ramifications. That was one of the reasons why Death has chosen Dyr. He was not from this Universe, he came from another, completely different universe. Dyr was free from certain rules that other had to accept.

" _As ready as I can be, and nay, lass, not even in a bloody nightmare",_ deadpanned Dyr at the comment of the capes and tights.

Dyr had nothing against those that preferred those kinds of setup; in all his life, he has seen all kind of fashion, so it was not new for him; still, he was comfortable with his Asgardian styled clothes, thank you very much.

The fleeting laugh of Death echoed in the mind of Dyr. As she left, not a few seconds later, Dyr raise his head to greet the JLA. It was part of the plan, the light spectacle with the pods sure would have called their attention, so it was logic that those that had a connection with the Corps and those that fought against Nekron could see what the heck was going on. Dyr knew; from the internet, that his appearance has cause sensation and he was looked by all organizations, good and evil.

Green Lantern, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Cyborg, and Shazam floated over the empty chamber, observing him with a mix of curiosity and wariness. Dyr knew that he was far from being a calming presence, he was a monster in all the sense of the world and with the Black Ring he carried in his golden hand, it was even worst.

Dry knew a lot about them, it was hard not too, they were everywhere on that thing called the internet. Ignoring the opinions of the mortals that they protect each day, Dyr saw records of all their actions in the defense of Midgard and he will admit that they deserve the name of Heroes.

Superman, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl were aliens that had made a home of this Midgard. The last Kryptonian, the Last Green Martian, and a Thanagarian warrior respectively. The three were part of the founders of the JLA, the ones that push back the White invasion, later they continued work together along with other heroes when the menaces became so big that they could not fight them individually.

Green Lantern, AKA John Stewart, and Cyborg shared a similarity on their origins, as it came from alien technology. The Green ring of will and the Father-Box technology.

Wonder Woman and Shazam, the supernatural representatives. The woman was a Scion, Dyr can sense it and quite possibly the woman would be feeling the same right now; depends on the strength of her _Ichor_ and how attuned she was with her divine essence. The man was different, Dyr sense something familiar on the man and the powers that rolled out from him like he was an amalgam of several _Ichors_ , one of them identical of the one of the Wonder Woman. Curiouser and Curiouser.

Batman was human, and the force of will needed to be able to stand at the side of the gods surrounding him was something that impressed Dyr. There was nothing on him, but his force of will and his cunning mind, yet, the JLA, deferred to him in matters of leadership and tactics. Dyr meet people like him in the past, people like Alexander the Great, Attila, Napoleon, Caesar, individuals that despite the lack of _Ichor_ , became legends on their own rights.

Flash was the odd one, the man was connected to something, a force that carried the lighting; something essential like Dyr, but at the same time different. Velocity, movement, whatever empowered the man, it was like feeling the motions of an eternal wheel, unstoppable and always moving. A Speed Force of some kind. Again, curiouser and curiouser.

Dyr had, what could only be called a pantheon, in front of him. Individuals that had challenged destiny more than once and emerged victoriously. Dyr had a lot of respect for this mortals and scions, after all, he has read all of their achievements and if this was Dyr´s original Midgard, he was sure that more than one of them would already be transcended to Demigod or even God status for their glorious sagas.

" _Greetings"_ , spoke Dyr in their minds. _"I am Dyr Bulwark, proud son of Muspellheim"._


End file.
